The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto: Soul of Fire
by General Grievous
Summary: NarutoxWorldofWarcraft Part II Thus begins the second part of the legend. The worlds grow closer, and their many evils begin to awaken and converge. Naruto must now fight harder than ever. NaruxOC NaruxSaku
1. The Anticlimactic Return!

**Disclaimer: Welcome Back! To remind those who really don't know, after all this time, I will say: I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft!**

Here's the beginning of Part Two of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto_! I hope you enjoy!

* * *

The distant screech of a bird—a sparrow, from the bell-like tinkling sound it made—made _chuunin_ Isomachi Kon blink and look to the side, in the direction it came from. He loved bird songs, and it was for that reason that he constantly took the job of watching the main gates of Konohagakure: the Village Hidden in the Leaves. The sparrow was a favorite in particular because they reminded him of his childhood. He had spent most of his younger days exploring the forest surrounding the great ninja village, and had gained a profound respect—and a deep affection—for the sights and sounds of the forest. It had all become so familiar to him; but he did not bore of it. Each day, when he took his normal post beside the monstrous wooden gates, which bore a distinct color of rusty metal, he couldn't wait to listen to the cry of the woods, which filled him with memories that he never wanted to forget. 

It was on this particular day that Kon was to be in for something entirely different than his normal routine. He stood outside the gates, appearing to all the world a staunchly vigilant shinobi who was ready to take on any who posed a threat, but in reality was listening to the peaceful sounds of the forest—the rejuvenating sounds of his home and his memories, which never ceased to soothe him. But even as he stood there, listening, his sharp ears—having learned to pick up the slightest of changes in the bird songs, suddenly picked up the sound of approaching footsteps.

Long before they came into view did he identify what type of people they were. The first walked quickly and urgently—whether from excitement, desperation, or merely normality; he would occasionally stop, likely to let the other catch up. For the other walked slowly, hobbling towards the gates—likely an old man or woman, and the quick steps their eager young grandchild brimming with excitement in reaching what Kon considered the greatest ninja village in the entire world. In addition to these two steps, there was a third—from the quick succession of steps it was likely an animal of some sort, perhaps a dog accompanying the boy. So when they finally entered view, Kon was quite surprised to find that his predictions were entirely wrong.

The first—the owner of the fast-paced step—was a boy, or rather, a young man, perhaps fifteen years old. He had hair that shined like the sun, and was so messy and tousled that despite the alert look on his face, made Kon wonder if he had not just gotten out of bed. The boy's eyes were so blue and big that they seemed sapphires floating in pools of white light. His face—and this was where Kon was stricken with a sudden sense of familiarity—was in the midst of turning from boyish to manly, and was adorned with three scars on each cheek, resembling the whiskers of an animal. His clothing was not so outlandish (and in Kon's opinion, quite cool-looking); he wore a nearly solid black jacket, partially undone at the top, with strips of orange down both sleeves (which flared at the ends) and several orange symbols near the bottom, resting near his thighs; his pants were inverted in design—they were almost completely orange, save for a black strip down each pant leg. They were wide at the bottom, exposing his ankles, though he wore open-toed black boots as a typical shinobi might. Around his waist were several pouches—likely containing weapons—as well as a finely crafted kodachi, which was stuck in the back of his belt, and a pair of high-tech goggles. But most impressively was his forehead protector—which bore the symbol of the Leaf in glinting steel.

Behind him was the owner of the slower-paced step—an extremely old man with long, white hair and a trimmed white goatee. His face was strong and wise, but weakened like an old tree by age and (from the way he grunted with each step) injury. Yet, what his face could not show, his eyes did—Kon was shocked by the power that surged in those eyes, twin brilliantly blazing suns, contained only by the rest of his eye sockets; they reminded him almost of the Third Hokage, now two years dead. The old man wore robes of flowing gold, so incredibly fine-looking that Kon was immediately impressed by his audacity to where such garments when the roads were likely full of bandits waiting for someone like him. He limped after the blonde, leaning on a large, gnarled staff.

The third newcomer was again not at all what Kon had expected. It was no dog at all, but a fox. Though not normally superstitious, the fox's color—a brilliant, shining silver like that of a freshly polished sword, was enough to make him wary of it. Thankfully it had only one tail—even if it was almost as large as an Inuzuka hound, which was roughly the size of a bear.

So strange and surprising were these visitors that it was only when the blonde stopped a few feet away from him did he begin to react.

"Stop," he said, holding out a hand for effect. All three visitors did, the first of them frowning at him so intensely that Kon began to doubt his own command. He steeled himself, however, and said in a formal voice, "do you have your passports?"

The blonde adopted a confused look, while the old man seemed to sigh without actually doing so. The boy then jabbed a thumb at his forehead, where the _hitai-ate _rested.

"This enough for ya?" he said, grumpily, for a reason that Kon couldn't surmise.

Kon peered forwards. "No. How do I know you didn't steal that? It's just a formality, you must understand. If you were a true ninja of the Leaf, you'd know that."

The blonde stared at him again, his face twisting between frustration and confusion. "You don't know who I am, dumbass?" He seemed shocked that Kon did not, in fact, know.

"No," Kon said again, glancing past the boy for a moment to look at the old man, who looking at him with eyes that Kon couldn't meet, and the fox, who (unless he was hallucinating) seemed to be licking its chops and glaring at him almost hungrily.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, dammit!" the blonde shouted, leaning forwards to further ruin Kon's sensitive eardrums.

"So?" Kon retorted. "You don't seem that important—or else I'd have heard of you!"

"Oi! Oi! Just let me through! I gotta see Tsunade-baba—"

"Hey!" Kon shouted. "Don't call Hokage-sama that! Anybody that rude doesn't deserve to meet the Hokage, much less be let in to the village!" He stepped back, and bent his knees, looking ready for a fight. "And don't even think of trying to use force, I'm a _chuunin_, and even then, I can have a dozen others appear in a flash! You're not getting in here without a passport, okay kid?"

The blonde glared at him murderously. He looked like he was about to shout something, but was interrupted by the old man.

"Now, now," he said, kindly. "No need to make a fuss. This young man is just doing his job. I'm sure you'd do the same thing, eh, child?"

"Pfft. I'd never take this job, it's too boring," the blonde said; yet, even as he said it, there was a certain tone in his voice that made Kon think a moment. It was a nostalgic tone, and accompanying it, the blonde's features softened a little, as he gazed around him at the forest. For a moment, there was silence, as the boy just looked around. The anger melted away, and he grinned at his surroundings like an infant returning to the sanctity of its mother's arms.

Kon watched this with interest. The look was familiar, yet he couldn't place it.

"Now, my boy," said the old man, limping forwards—the fox following slowly behind, as if ready to catch him as he fell. "What is it you said we needed? Passports?"

"Yes," Kon said, nodding formally and politely. He had always been taught to respect one's elders.

"I think I may have something like it…hold on." The old man began to rummage around in his pocket, muttering something, before producing a small, leather book. "Might this be it?" He held it out, and Kon took it.

Opening the book, Kon saw not a picture, but in curly script, the man's name and formal title—"Archbishop Benedictus Faol Tertius, Leader of the Church of Stormwind City, Former Regent of Stormwind City, Pupil of Archbishop Alonsus Faol, Member of the Order of the Holy Light, etc."

He blinked.

"What's this?"

"My passport, I should think."

"Where's the photo, and your reasons for coming to Konoha?"

"Might I ask what a photo is?"

Again, Kon could not but stare at the old man, who merely gazed at him serenely.

"Are you serious?" Kon asked.

"Quite," the old man, Benedictus, retorted. The blonde, Naruto, slapped his hand to his forehead, and rolled his big blue eyes.

"Where are you from, anyways?"

"I believe my passport says it all—Stormwind."

"Which country is that in?"

"The Eastern Kingdoms of Azeroth, I would think."

"Pardon?"

"Oi!" Naruto shouted, finally having enough of the purposeless drivel. "Stop that! We gotta see Tsunade-baba now! I can prove that I know her, too!" Before Kon could think to react, the boy reached into the buttoned jacket and produced a glittering green stone, which hung on a black cord around his neck. Kon stared at it a moment, unimpressed.

"It's a stone. It's nice, but that hardly connects you to the Hokage."

Naruto twitched, a vein throbbing almost comically in his forehead. The old man sighed, stroking his beard.

"Is there some way we might…"

"Hey, Kon! Your shift's up!"

Kon half-turned at the voice, as a pretty girl dressed in purple leapt down from atop the guard tower surrounding the gates. She landed without a sound, and flicked her long, beautiful white-blonde hair back. It was tied in a tail behind her, though a part of it still hung over her right eye. The other eye, exposed, was a glinting grey, full of emotion hovering between great vanity and simple self-assurance. She wore a purple top and an extremely short skirt with a slit cut down the middle, exposing fishnet shorts just barely covering her unmentionables. She had more over her elbows and knees.

And Naruto, despite after years of being apart, recognized her on sight.

"Ino!" he shouted. "Tell this guy I'm a Leaf-nin! He's a bastard and won't let me in!"

Ino frowned and the blonde, but not for the reason she was supposed to. It had not quite clicked in her mind that the boy standing in front of her was her errant friend, Naruto. Perhaps it was the way he simply acted as if he had just seen her yesterday, without hardly a shocked glance or a happy yell at seeing her; or perhaps it was simply her mind trying to match the tall, good-looking blonde to the short, loud boy she had known so long ago.

So instead of breaking out into hysterics, she simply said, "Chill out, Naruto! You forget your passport or something? Geez, it's okay Kon. He's a friend, and a definite Leaffff…nin…NARUTO!"

Naruto jumped at Ino's sudden ejaculation, and jumped even further when she leapt forth and wrapped him into a tight hug.

"It's you! You're back! I can't believe it!" she shouted, hopping up and down, still clutching him tightly. It was not an unpleasant situation for the blonde, but his earlier frustration with the guardsman had all but vanished, and his shock at seeing her finally came forth.

"I-Ino? I-It's…I'm back!

"Hell yeah! I'm finally back!"

* * *

"What was I supposed to do? Ero-sennin had my passport!" Naruto said later, walking beside Ino and Tsuwabuki down the street towards the Hokage's tower. It was a Sunday morning, and the streets were nearly deserted. The ground was wet from a recent rain, but the sun now shined brightly, and the air was so much warmer than that of Stormwind. The seasons were different then, he realized. 

"You could have just been a little more patient. Kon's good at what he does, but he's a relative newbie in most ninja-affairs. Its why he's been stuck constantly doing guard duty," said Ino, her body visibly quivering in excitement and cheer. She couldn't wait to get to the Hokage—and she couldn't wait to see the look on Sakura's face!

"Nevertheless, my dear, I think we owe you a thank you. I would have hated to do something to that poor boy," Benedictus said, smiling like a grandfather might to his grandchildren.

"No problem," she said. "Who are you, anyways?" She then glanced at the fox beside her. "And who's this pretty thing?"

'**_Such a good observer she is,'_** said Tsuwabuki, leaning against Ino's leg, which made the girl reach down and pet her with a smile.

"That old man is Benedictus," said Naruto, "and that's Tsuwabuki, my annoying side-kick."

'**_I'll accept annoying, but sidekick is out of line, moron.'_**

"Geez, you're just like Kiba and Akamaru," said Ino, rolling her eyes and smirking at Naruto. She then smiled warmly. "They're going to be glad you're back. Everyone is. You have no idea what things have been like since you were gone." She then gave him a secret, tiny smile that Naruto could not—nor ever would—understand. It was a smile that only girls could smile, and though he didn't know it, he would find out the secret hidden by that smile quite soon.

"Everyone's been worried?" Naruto asked.

"From the very beginning, idiot. They've all been training hard to get strong enough to be able to match you. From what we've heard, you've gotten quite strong." She smirked. "I can't wait to see if all those stories that annoying little toad told us were true or not."

They lapsed into silence then, and for the rest of the trip, other than enjoying Ino's companionship (and completely missing the cursory glances she shot at his behind), Naruto looked around. Each building they passed—whether it was insignificant as a house whose owners he did not know, or as big as a supermarket, he did not care. Each one made up a part of the village that he so loved; the village that was his home, and always would be. Everything was familiar to him: the smells of all sorts of foods, from curry and rice to oden, daikon, and sushi—things he had not smelt for years. The sounds—of familiar birds chirping overhead; of blacksmiths forging weapons to sell to shinobi; of people chattering in their homes or on the street or sitting in parks; of distant battle—young _genin_ and _chuunin_ training the areas dotted within and out of the forests enclosed in the walls of the city. The streets, smoothly paved, his boots making a soft clopping sounds with each step, and colored a familiar beige which one time he had thought boring and stupid (orange would have been better), but now he thought wondrous and wanted it never to change. The buildings—the familiar style and shape, towering high above him or being as short and squat as a food cart they passed on the street. When he rounded each corner, he was reminded of all he had done on that street—of the many times he had been forced to flee Iruka's wrath from performing a prank, or of the many times he and his teammates had walked down it, coming back from or on their way to a mission. Each place they passed Naruto remembered fondly—and even after seeing so much, it had not lost the glory that he once taken for granted. He had honestly—in all his travels, never seen a more beautiful city.

Konoha was one of a kind.

They rounded another corner, and as they did, a voice called out from above.

"Well, I thought I saw something familiar. Is that really you, Naruto?"

Naruto whipped his head around and up, to meet the single cheerfully smiling eye of Hatake Kakashi, his former _jounin_ instructor. The man, with the same silver hair sticking up and out at a strange, bed-tangled direction; with his _hitai-ate _slung over his left eye, obscuring the powerful _Sharingan_ eye that he had always mysteriously possessed; his ever present face mask which had once been an object for his students' lazy day amusement; and even clutching in his hand the familiar bright orange book that he had held from the day they had met; sat perched upon the roof of a small bookshop to their right, and had affixed his gleaming black eye upon Naruto and Tsuwabuki, with a smile that stretched his face mask.

"Kakashi-sensei!" the boy cried, blinking.

"Yo!" Kakashi said, leaping from his position and landing without a sound a few feet in front of Naruto, tucking his book away and smiling at Naruto. "It's good to see you again."

"That all you can say?" Naruto asked, puffing his cheeks out in annoyance. "I've been gone for that long, and all you can say is 'it's good to see you again'?"

Ever smiling, Kakashi gave a slight chuckle. "That's about it. Should I burst into tears and hug you, smothering you with misplaced affection?"

Naruto, upon hearing that, shuddered and stepped back. "N-never mind."

Kakashi chuckled again. "Glad to see that you haven't changed much." He glanced at Ino, and then at Naruto's two companions. "So Ino was the first to find you, hmm? And who might those two be?"

"Friends," Naruto explained. "But the old guy's come for a different reason, though. We're gonna see Tsunade-baba about it right now, and get me back on the active shinobi roster! I've been gone too long!"

"You were never taken off it, really, but she'll definitely want to see you. I suppose I'll come, if only to make sure you don't give her a heart attack by showing up unannounced." He then gave a slight bow to Benedictus, whom he had obviously recognized of being from a higher class than most.

"Hatake Kakashi, sir."

The old man chuckled. "Archbishop Benedictus, Lord Regent of Stormwind. A pleasure."

"Indeed."

Ino snorted, and Naruto gave a cough that sounded slightly like "old man", though Kakashi could not tell. They continued on.

Kakashi followed behind Naruto, as they walked, and noticed how he walked, and how he held himself. Though he hid it, like many of his other secrets, beneath his nearly covered face, the way Naruto strode with such confidence, added to his increased height, made Kakashi think of someone else, long ago. He would not say it, but Naruto had changed, immensely, in his time away from Konoha.

It would be interesting to see how much.

They came at last to the Hokage's tower, looming in front of the monument like a giant plaque to the past and present Hokages. It was then that Naruto first noticed the newest addition to the monument, and he snickered privately.

'_That look doesn't suit baa-chan,'_ he thought, with a grin.

Ino proudly flung open the doors to the monument and declared loudly that she needed to see the Hokage, as it was very important (and rather hush-hush) business. The receptionist—a _chuunin_ who had likely been shanghaied into doing the duty through Tsunade's use of excessive persuasion (he was rather attractive, Ino thought offhandedly as she and Naruto walked through the doors to the stairs, followed by Benedictus and Tsuwabuki), merely glanced at them as they walked by, only paying slight attention to Tsuwabuki who simply gave him a glaring amber eye in return.

Up the steps they went, and with each one, Naruto grew more and more excited. He couldn't wait to see Tsunade, no matter how she treated him.

They reached the top floor quick enough, and turned left down a hallway laded with velvet red carpet to a large pair of double doors labeled "Hokage's Office," in golden kanji on the side. Ino directed Naruto and his companions to stay outside.

"You want an entrance, don't you?"

Naruto agreed with a smile.

* * *

Sakura was exhausted. 

"You don't have to keep going, you know," Tsunade told her, in her usual place upon the luxurious leather couch in the annex to her office, where she held most of training sessions with the young woman. "Your training ended a little while ago. Take a break, already. I won't have you passing out in my office, okay?"

Sakura, who was in the midst of cultivating the _chakra_ necessary an extremely powerful _jutsu _that Tsunade was teaching her—one that repaired severed or dead nerves (to a degree)—looked back at her master with a weary smile. She dropped her hands, which had once been surrounded by a glow as green as glittering emeralds, and slumped back in the chair behind her.

"I thought I almost had it."

"I wouldn't have been surprised if you had," Tsunade said, rolling her eyes. "You've mastered so many other things in such a short time—things that takes many medic-nin years to even grasp—and have begun to take many of them even further. The least you could do was treat your body with a little bit more respect, and not beat it into exhaustion every day."

Sakura opened her mouth to respond, but Tsunade waved it away.

"I know your answer to that, of course. But I'd have thought you'd want to look your best for when the brat gets back."

Sakura turned crimson at Tsunade's remark. "Tsunade-shishou!" she muttered, embarrassed.

"Hmph. I wouldn't say it if it weren't true."

"It's been almost four months," Sakura then said, after a slight pause, "since Naruto last contacted us. Longer, even. When do you think he'll get back?"

"Whenever he finds a way. If he doesn't get killed doing something stupid, first."

"Shishou!"

"I'm kidding. He'll be back." Tsunade smiled. "Have you noticed we've been having these conversations quite a bit more often?"

"I'm not the only one who's worried," mumbled Sakura. "Lee-kun and the others are getting worried as well. They don't say it much, but Naruto hasn't gone this long without talking to us. I haven't had any good news to tell Teuchi-san or Ayame-san for a while." She sat back, mumbling exhaustedly, "That idiot is always making us worry."

Tsunade nodded. That certainly was true. It had been several months, and no word—even a hint—from Naruto. Jiraiya said that he hadn't even summoned the toads in those for months. Nobody had heard of him. Though Tsunade was confident that he would return, every day, her worry grew a bit more.

In the corridor, unbeknownst to them, Naruto was recovering from a series of violent sneezes. Benedictus handed the boy a cloth, asking him if he was getting a cold. When Naruto muttered that someone was thinking of him, Benedictus began to question what exactly that meant, and was treated to a hole-filled explanation of the superstition so commonly held in Naruto's world.

Sakura began to stand. "I'd better get back. I suppose I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course," the older woman said. "We'll—"

She was interrupted by a loud knocking upon the door.

"Who is it?"

Ino's voice came through, muffled by the heavy wooden door. "Yamanaka Ino, Hokage-sama! I have something that I need to tell you."

Tsunade frowned. "Come in. What is it?"

"It'd work better, Hokage-sama, if you were to come here. Sakura too. If that's no trouble, of course."

Tsunade frowned again, harder and graver. There was something suspicious in Ino's tone. She glanced at Sakura, who was frowning too, but in a different way.

"What is it?" Tsunade asked.

"She sounds excited," Sakura said. "Really excited. I know Ino well enough to know when she's excited, but trying to hide it." She glanced at Tsunade. "I think we should go."

"Fine," the old woman said, grumpily, standing up. "This better be good."

Exactly ten seconds later, Tsunade found out exactly how good it was.

"Yo! Baa-chan! What's up?"

Both Tsunade and Sakura, who traveled a little ways behind the Hokage, and was nearly obscured by the woman's large jacket as well as the slight doorframe, stopped in an instant at hearing that voice. And Tsunade, who had full-view of her large, main office, stopped, when she spotted the visitor, standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed, and grinning a grin she had not seen for almost two years.

"Naruto?"

The blonde blinked. "Who else?"

Only the reservation born from years of training allowed Tsunade to stop herself from hugging the boy on sight. Instead she began to laugh, loud and uproarious, as an unbelievable joy welled up within her heart, and was pumped rapidly to the rest of her body. Relief flooded her eyes and mixed with the cheer, and her face held a smile that she reserved for only her closest companions and loved ones.

But when Sakura walked out from behind the old woman, it was Naruto's turn to be shocked.

Though she certainly did not look her best at that moment, she had changed so much that Naruto almost could not believe that the girl who stood before him was Haruno Sakura, his teammate and childhood crush.

It was without doubt partly her physical appearance—to be sure, that had changed immensely; she was in every way more womanly, with fuller hips, a (slightly) more pronounced bust, and an definite increase in height; she carried herself in a more sultry, refined way, not unlike that of Tsunade, and wore clothes that suited her new figure in a way that stripes suited a tiger or spots a leopard. Partly also was it the presence she now exuded—gone was the weak-bodied little girl that he had left. In her place was a self-assured, powerful, and mature young woman whose body seemed to ripple with a hidden power. Her eyes were filled with far more confidence than ever before—and with its presence, Naruto suddenly wanted to see exactly what she could do. Sakura had always interested him because she had been pretty—at first, that is. But he had learned to like her personality as well—but not the delicate, flower-like visage she had put on with almost everybody but him. It was the side she showed when he was present, or when she fought: the fiery, strong-spirited warrior, who now seemed ever-present. Doubtlessly, it was this change that most saw—but for Naruto, the change was not in its revelation, but in its sudden integration into her whole being. She was half the delicate flower, and half the powerful warrior, both at the same time. The Sakura that he had crushed on was now a part of the whole Sakura at all times; and it was this that made him freeze, because it had been quite a while since he had seen something so beautiful; power and beauty in one package, with the addition of a great friend.

For Sakura, it was much the same—only for her, it was almost a purely physical change in the blonde. She noticed at once how tall he had grown. He towered above her now, it seemed, whereas he had always been shorter than her before. His shoulders were broader and his face, despite still a little boyish, was in the process of being sculpted into that of a man's. His hair was a little longer, and a little wilder. Beneath his clothes (which hung a little loose, and were far cooler than his former orange jumpsuit), she could just barely spot the tone of his muscles, built up from almost two years of training and fighting. But he was not completely changed. His posture was still confident and strong, almost to the point of foolhardy arrogance. But his eyes, above all, were the same. They were still clear and blue—glittering with great power and spirit, like twin raging whirlpools that drew anything they captured in. And before they had spotted each other, she had heard his voice, which still rang as loud as a foghorn, though not half as unpleasant. Before he had seen her, she had seen his smile: that vulpine grin of absolute confidence, which filled up one's heart to the point where one believed nothing was impossible. Yet, still within his eyes, she could see something else; a much more pronounced wisdom, that had perhaps always been there, and had been made more and more known with each adventure he had had. It no longer seemed so childish, however—Naruto had definitely matured, at some level, even if one could not immediately see it.

They both stared at each other a little longer, before Sakura became suddenly self-conscious. She suddenly realized that she was probably drenched in sweat and looked like she had just run a marathon.

She blushed a little, and said, "You're back." She did not quite know how to react. She had thought that his return would have been climactic and planned, but this sudden appearance—out of nowhere—was difficult to process. Was she supposed to jump for joy, and hug him on sight? Somehow, she didn't see herself doing that. And nor did she find that this was so incredibly strange. She had had a feeling that he'd be returning soon—of course, that had been months ago, but it had been a feeling nonetheless. She thus found it difficult to be surprised, though she was no less happy about his return than either Ino or Tsunade. She would probably feel different later.

Naruto came to himself at that moment as well, and quickly scratched the back of his head, nodding.

"Yep! Was there any doubt?"

Sakura smiled. "I guess not." She smoothed out her skirt and shirt as she said this, an action that Naruto caught, and reminded him immediately of the younger, more delicate Sakura that faced everyone else.

"Haha," he said fondly, "Sakura-chan hasn't changed a bit!"

Sakura paused, blinking at him, and suddenly felt irritated (made evident by a small vein throbbing in her temple). Had he not noticed how different she looked? How much more womanly she had become?

Both Tsunade and Ino sweat-dropped at the boy's tactlessness. Sakura wasn't the only one who hadn't changed.

Forcing down her irritation, Sakura walked towards him and to his immense surprise, embraced him. Her body shook once, and for a moment Naruto thought she was crying.

But no tears flowed from her eyes.

"You're finally back," she said, and stepped back, her entire being seeming to smile. "Don't do that again, okay?" It sounded lame, reflecting back on it, but it was the only thing she could manage at that point, still partly affected by the suddenness of his appearance.

Naruto, still reveling in the knowledge that he had been hugged by _Sakura-chan_ of all people, came to himself again and laughed.

"Of course not! I made a promise to you, didn't I?"

Sakura visibly hardened for a second, and then nodded. The tenderness in her eyes vanished, and instead of smiling, she now smirked—her eyes became almost Tsunadean in their reflection of power, and even there appeared a slight arrogance. She thrust out her thumb, upturned, in a gesture that he had made to her nearly two years ago.

But before she could speak, Tsunade finally noticed the other three occupants of the room—Benedictus and Tsuwabuki, foremost, who had crept in through the front door and had watched the proceedings from the beginning; and Kakashi, who stood in the doorframe and was busying himself in finishing the chapter of _Icha Icha Paradise _that he had started the previous night before heading to sleep.

"Who are you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "And what is that?"

"She's Tsuwabuki," said Naruto, pointing to the fox, who walked over to Naruto and sat by his side, panting cutely so much that Sakura could not help but bend down and begin to pet her. "And that's Benedictus."

Benedictus affixed the boy with an irritated look. "Archbishop Benedictus, I'll have you know, boy." He then looked at Tsunade and gave her a slight smile, and a small bow. "And I am pleased to meet you, vile snake-beast in human form."

He said the last few words in such casualness that at first, Tsunade did not pick them up. She made to return the bow, and introduce herself, before her mind suddenly registered the final words in his sentence, and she looked up at him sharply, her eyes wide and searching.

_What_ had he just called her?

"Pardon?" she asked, standing up straight and slowly crossing her arms over her prodigious chest.

The old man blinked, and said politely, without a hint of sarcasm or bad will, "Did I stutter? I said I was pleased to meet you."

"What did you say after that?" she asked, frowning.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You didn't say anything like 'vile-snake beast in human form' after you said that?"

"Of course not! I need to make a good first-impression, do I not?"

Tsunade opened her mouth to respond, shut it, and then frowned a moment. She glanced at Sakura and Naruto, both of whom were staring at Benedictus wide-eyed in shock, but quickly schooled their features when they noticed she was looking. She turned back to Benedictus, who was smiling serenely at her, like an old grandfather—reminiscent of her former _sensei_, Sarutobi.

"Whatever," she said, promising to listen intently to what he said from now on. "It's good to meet you, too. What are you doing here, anyways?"

"That's for another time, I should think," the old man said. "Now is the time for you to reacquaint yourselves with each other. You have all been apart for so long, and it would be imprudent—and perhaps foolish—of me to intrude on that. Naruto shall explain my presence in the end, so I suspect I will be back here at some point. At the moment, I am famished. I shall go visit one of those nice restaurants that we passed." He bowed again. "Goodbye, and see you later, Naruto."

He departed, whistling a slight tune, and was gone before anyone could speak.

Tsunade stared at the empty doorframe a moment, unsure of what to say. She glanced at Naruto, whose face was scrunched into a look of similar confusion. Their eyes met, and Naruto gave a slight shrug.

"Well," grunted Tsunade. "I suppose we should take his word for it, eh? How'd you get back?"

"Well," Naruto said, scratching his head. "It's kind of hard to explain, since when they told me, they used all these really big words that I didn't understand…but—"

"Ho! So the rumors were true!"

The voice, as familiar as the touch of wind on his skin, and yet as irritating as an itch in a place he couldn't scratch, Naruto whirled to face the window, where he spotted someone whose face he had seen most recently of all those currently in the room.

"Ero-sennin!"

In a flash, Jiraiya—self-proclaimed "super pervert", Sennin of the Toads, teacher of the Fourth, former teammate of Tsunade, and former pupil of the Sandaime Hokage—crossed the room and struck Naruto violently on the top of the skull, knocking him into a heap on the ground.

"I'll teach you to disrespect me, you brat! It's Jiraiya, get it right!" the old man shouted, his brow contorted into a look of anger and frustration, his wild white locks seeming to move with the force of his sudden and unexpected rage. Naruto picked himself up in a flash, hardly winded, and shouted right back at him.

"Stupid pervert! I only call you that 'cause you are one! And is that how you treat your student after he gets back from a completely different world?"

"What, I have a student? If you're referring to my _ex_-student, who abandoned his post in the middle of my excellent training to go off gallivanting with dragons, princesses and those sort, then you can tell him that he won't get another technique from me!"

"What! Bastard! I didn't ask to get pulled away! And besides, your training sucked anyways!"

"Ungrateful brat!"

The two raged like this for a while longer, and soon it became clear to Sakura, Tsunade, Tsuwabuki and Ino (and Kakashi, though he was far too absorbed in his reading to care) that neither was truly serious about what they were saying. It was obvious, from the way they slid into the almost choreographed argument, that they had done it quite often, and it would soon peter out.

And they were right.

For minutes late, both had exhausted their repertoire of insults and taunts, and had fallen to grinning at each other like brothers meeting again after ages of being apart. Jiraiya stood to his full height, and clapped Naruto on the back.

"Well, good thing you're back, brat. I missed my annoying apprentice." His eyes were fond, almost grandfatherly, as he stared down at the blonde, who grinned back at the older man with the same cheekiness that had made Jiraiya agree to train him in the first place.

"I missed pissing you off, too, Ero-sennin," Naruto said. Jiraiya snorted, and turned back to Tsunade.

"So, I believe we had a bet?"

Tsunade grunted. "Later. Right now, Naruto has some things to tell us, doesn't he?"

"Guess so," mumbled Naruto. "Can we sit down, first?"

Tsunade nodded, and walked back to the adjacent room, where she and Sakura had been training. Everyone followed, Jiraiya and Naruto last.

"After this, Naruto," the Toad Hermit said, suddenly drawing Naruto's attention to his now serious face, hard like granite with eyes cast in iron. "We have a few things to discuss, concerning your training—and _that_."

Naruto, pausing in his step, and staring at the old man's face for a moment, merely nodded, before joining the others.

* * *

It was a crisp and sunny day—it was rather cold, but for the time of year they were in, that was not surprising. There was a slight breeze that made the skin prickle with pins and needles along exposed areas of skin, despite the shining sun above. The trees had been burned gold, or brushed red and purple by the changing season, making it seem as if the whole of Elwynn Forest was aflame in the most beautiful way. It made it a treat for anyone who needed to travel the roads within it (for they were now safer, thanks to the increased number of guardsmen who traveled the road by the Princess' own request). Within the walls of Stormwind, while less beautiful, it was no less rewarding to walk through, for if one did, they could see things that would seem out of place even at the strangest of circuses (it was a nightmare Silas Darkmoone frequently had.) 

For, amidst the crowded streets—set between rows of new-looking houses and shops, many differing so radically in size and style that from above it must have seemed a mosaic; some were tall and narrow, and built of a dark wood that did not match the trees of Elwynn Forest—these matched the older houses of the area, and thus it could not be contested as to who had built them; but some were short and wide, built solidly from stone as red as the falling sun—these were towards the outer regions of the city, near the slums, for they were cheap and easy to make, and allowed everyone a roof over their head; some seemed almost primitive in comparison—with uneven and different colored woods used to build them, and seeming lopsided in comparison; and some seemed so advanced that they might have been sent back from the future, with metal rims and thick doors. But between, within, and around these there were dozens of people, walking to and fro, each differing as incredibly as the houses themselves. Some were massive and the color of healthy grass, with large tusks and wild hair; some were minotaurs, covered in fur, bearing large curved horns, and walking on hooves; some were hunched and the color of clear sky, with tattoos painted on their arms and large, flapping ears; some were small as children, but had the look of elders; some were tough and hardy, with short legs and stocky bodies, their faces covered in plenty of whiskers; some were tall and graceful, the color of the twilight sky, with eyes that shined as bright as flames or as pearly as the moon.

And some were but mere humans.

It was they that Kira watched most intently, as she slowly made her way towards the castle—the castle of Stormwind, still in the process of being rebuilt from its destruction at the hands of Onyxia the Dragon Queen. It would take a bit longer to come to its fullest—but it was even larger than before, and was being built by not just humans, but all the races of the world—from the powerful orcs to the shadowy Forsaken undead.

Still, it was a beautiful sight for her, and just more evidence to the fact that she was on the right path.

"It's amazing, isn't it, Ky'?" said Kira, smiling to her side, where another girl walked. This girl, her handmaiden, Kylia, had short, midnight hair and clear blue afternoon eyes. She was pretty: a slim waist, well shaped but not large breasts, and smooth, clear skin. But one would not notice such a thing one first looking at her; for she was pale and nervous, like a timid ghost, and she was missing a left ear—bitten off by a monstrous man in her travels. However, this was in complete contrast to what she truly was. In battle, anyone could attest to her immense skill in the manipulation and handling of daggers. She was suited to her role as Kira's bodyguard, and rarely left the girl's side. She was a quiet, private person who rarely spoke, and whose presence was easily overlooked; but she nonetheless had an effect on Kira, giving her a silent courage and strength that was unnoticeable save for when Kylia was not there. She wore a short dark tunic with long, flaring sleeves and a dark blue skirt that stretched to her ankles.

"Yes," Kylia agreed. She cast a slight smile at Kira, who was in complete opposite to her. Kira had long, flowing golden hair, lit with highlights of auburn that made it appear like leaves in autumn. Her eyes were violet and shined like gems, and her body was nearly complete in its development—she had sizeable breasts (and in her opinion, still growing), a womanly, hourglass figure, and tanned skin without a mark. She wore a set of robes of white and gold, befitting her status as a priestess. She strode, unlike Kylia, with confidence and authority; both were relatively new additions to her personality. A year ago, she had neither been confident nor had held much authority—but that had changed, as had she. Now, to everyone who saw her pass, she was the image of a queen.

But the regal air she possessed was not something that made others step away from her, and bow—on the contrary, as they passed people in the street, whether human or otherwise, she was greeted as if she was but another passerby on the street. It had always been her belief, and it always would be, that the ruler of a nation needed not to place themselves above their subjects. To be sure, they needed to hold authority and establish that they could handle the affairs of the city; but one had not to be conceited, and had to be able to work on the same level as one's people. She was not stronger, or better, than all of them, and she had already made that clear. Indeed, they were her strength, as much as she was theirs. It was a two-way process.

"King Magni says that the castle only has a few more weeks before it is completed," Kira said, gazing fondly at the ever-growing stone structure before them. "It'll be amazing, won't it Ky'? I can't wait for Naruto to…" She suddenly stopped, and the confidence that she had once exuded in every step faded.

Naruto.

By all rights, she shouldn't have felt as she did. Naruto wasn't gone. He was just away—he was back home, where he had longed to be, and would most certainly (he had promised, after all) that he would be back. She didn't doubt that—she had learned that doubting Naruto simply generated more stress than was necessary. So far, Naruto had done everything he had set out to do for her, and more.

But perhaps what she felt—not loneliness or despair, but something close to it—was that she could not be there when Naruto first returned to the world and village of his birth. She couldn't see the cheer on his face, when it came into view, or the rapturous first words he uttered when he saw it. And nor could she see the village itself, which from how Naruto had spoken of it, must have been a beautiful place. She had secretly wished, long before the gnomes' plan had been revealed to them, that she could see Naruto's village. It must have been an amazing place, she decided, to give life to such a person as Naruto.

And she couldn't be there when he returned.

Benedictus' reasoning for it had been simple and obvious. She could not go because her place was here, in Stormwind. She had been away too long, and at this moment her presence was needed above all others.

But still she had argued that she should go.

For she wanted to be able to describe the terms of the alliance to Naruto's leader, the Godaime Hokage Tsunade, in her own words.

It felt right—it was her dream, after all, and she should be the one to discuss it with the Hokage. But again, Benedictus had simply put her argument to rest. It was selfish to think that it was now _her_ Alliance, and that she should be the one to govern it all; she had done a fine job in putting it together, but now it was an idea held by all who were a part of it. Therefore, it was now _the_ Alliance, not _hers_. Hence, as Benedictus was technically still regent until Kira was crowned, he would conduct the official business himself, and travel with Naruto, alone, to Konoha to carry it out. In the mean time she would remain in Stormwind, and continue to oversee its rebirth. That was now her duty, and it would be shameful for her to put that aside due to her selfish reasons.

She had not contested, after that.

Naruto's other friends had not been able to join him, either. Benedictus had been thankful for this. It stood to reason that introducing other races to another world—especially a world that was home to nothing but humans—would be problematic. He feared the reaction people would have should they see a lumbering orc or tauren, or even (God forbid) a Forsaken undead. Thankfully, the fates had been kind, and all of them had been called back to their individual leaders.

Golbarn, and Kaine had returned to Orgrimmar. The message Thrall had sent said that Golbarn was needed to oversee new recruits into the army; Kaine had been called by his grandfather, and was to join a group that (by Benedictus' suggestion in a recent letter to the Orcish Warchief) was going to rebuild the settlement in Dustwallow, now that Onyxia was dead. Benedictus had suggested to Kira that they do the same, and indeed, that was where Undrig, along with a group of dwarves and humans, was currently on his way to. Gen'rash had gone south, to the recently rebuilt settlement of Grom'gol, and was going to help Vol'jin continue the reconstruction of the Trollish city of Zul'Gurub—a city that Vol'jin and his band had cleared of the foul Blood God, Hakkar, and his worshippers years ago.

Shandris and Neera had returned, via hearthstones, to Darnassus, along with a group of humans, dwarves, gnomes and even some tauren. From what the messages Tyrande constantly sent Kira, they were making great strides in the rearmament of their military. Neera, by request, was constantly making trips (helped by Matthias Hindenborough) to Orgrimmar and other cities in order to not only see the world, but also help promote trade between the races.

The two Forsaken, Fenritt and Myrdraxxis, had left with their allies and returned to the Undercity, far to the north. They had not stayed any longer than truly needed. Fen and Myrdraxxis had helped kill Onyxia, while the other Forsaken had helped teach others about the medicines they had brought. Their desire to linger had not been great, so as soon as both operations had been completed, they had departed. Kira was greatly distressed by this, but Benedictus had assured her that it was necessary. One could not expect the prejudice to end between the Forsaken and the living humans with but a single act. Give it time, were his words. And so she would.

The gnomes, Linkizzle and Rurizzle, would remain in Gnomeregan (which was nearly finished in its repairs) with their brother, Furnizzle, and were working on developing more portals. However, these would not travel between worlds, merely space, and would allow travel between capital cities to be much swifter and easier than ever before.

Though before leaving, all of these friends had told Naruto that they would definitely see his world one day. For, like Kira, they wanted to know what kind of world had given Uzumaki Naruto the power that he had used to aid theirs.

But with that thought, Kira sighed again. They had been gone several days now, and already she was feeling it. It had been a long time since she had not seen Naruto in a day, or heard his loud, powerful voice echoing in the throes of some difficult training exercise that he had developed for himself.

In the months before he had left that had been almost all Naruto had done—practice. But the nature of it had been such that he had to train outside the confines of the city, away from prying eyes and listening ears. For, in addition to honing his normal skills, and bettering his grasp of the _Tetra-Elemental Style_, he had placed almost all of his time and effort into the control of the Kyuubi's _chakra_; it was not going well.

The training seal devised by Tyrande helped, no doubt, but still Naruto had little idea of how to actually use it. It did not mould like regular _chakra_—it was far too uncontrollable for that. The Kyuubi had never truly used fully formed jutsu, and the ones it had used had been wildly powerful. He could not use seals for this_ chakra_; it simply didn't work. He tried using it for a _Kage Bunshin_, but he could not control enough of it for it to work. He needed more of it, but that required greater control, something that he did not have. So no matter how hard he tried, nothing worked. He would work for hours, molding the same amount of _chakra_, attempting to put it to some use. It worked well for enhancing his physical strength and speed, but he could only use a small amount of it effectively, so it was hardly useful. He knew that he could use it to heal, but he had so little knowledge of medical ninjutsu that he had no idea of how to use it as such. He could use it, also, as a shield against attack, but again, control was the issue.

But it was his nature that he could not simply stop and leave it. He would train for a while in his other arts, such as sword moving and practicing with its talents, but the Kyuubi's _chakra_ would always draw him back, and he would spend the rest of his time, in vain, struggling to wield the monstrous power contained within him.

Of course, practice had not been all Naruto had done. He had traveled, as well. He had gone to Ironforge (via gryphon travel, provided by his friend Orsson) and stayed there awhile, before going to Gnomeregan from there and seeing the progress the gnomes had made in the repair of their city. He reestablished connections with High Tinker Mekkatorque, as well as Furnizzle, and traveled between Ironforge and Gnomeregan freely. A tram system, which had been destroyed by Mekgineer Thermaplugg during his hostile takeover, had been repaired and now connected Ironforge and Gnomeregan once more. They were already working on repairing the tram system that connected Ironforge and Stormwind, as well. He had been there only a week before he had departed, and using Matthias Hindenborough's help, had visited his brother in blood, Vol'jin, deep in the jungles of Stranglethorn. As opposed to the other visits, this had been more of a vacation. He had sent back a letter (via a rather frightening, half-skeletal crow), saying that he had forced to relax most of the week he was there. Kira was glad for that, because after all the work he had done in bringing the New Alliance together, as well as all of the vicious training he had subjected himself to, it was much well-deserved.

After that, Matthias had ferried him to Orgrimmar, where he had stayed another short week and helped Thrall in some minor missions, as he had when he had first gone. Then he had used the hearthstone tying him to Teldrassil, and had spent yet another week with the women, Tyrande Whisperwind, who he had grown so fond of during their stay prior to returning to Stormwind. He had spent most of his time helping train others, during that time, and had made quite a name for himself among the rookie Sentinels.

After everything, Naruto had said it had been a very productive, and enjoyable, few months.

Though not all had been joyous.

Escorted by the Argent Dawn, the refugees from the Scarlet Monastery had returned to Stormwind, and had learned of what had taken place since their departure. With everyone returned, Kira had finally been able to lay those fallen in Onyxia's attack to rest.

On a grey morning, in a section of land that had once been houses, near the edge of the city, they had buried every single one of them, and had sent their souls, now at peace, to Nirvana. For Kira, it had been the most difficult day of her reign, and on that day she had promised that she would never again leave her people vulnerable to such a tragedy. She would never again let so many people sink into the ground before her eyes, never to rise again. She would often visit the graveyards, and gaze upon her fallen people—most of whom she had never met, or seen—but she would not cry. She would look upon them with a look that she remembered her father using. A look of longing despair, eyes filled with unshed pools of tears like glistening vials of crystal, for those whom she should have been able to protect; those whom she would have gladly sacrificed her life for, if it would mean they could return to their lives and live them out as they had been meant to. A look that must have been spawned from her father's own shame at sending many to their deaths at Onyxia's claws. But there were no tears in her look, as there had been none in his. But she went without fail, each day, at the end of her normal duties—sometimes alone, sometimes with Kylia by her side.

And sometimes she would meet Naruto there.

Usually covered in dirt and smelling of sweat, he would always be standing beside the same two graves, made simply of wooden crosses, each with a name carved within. The graves of two people that he had only met briefly, but would never meet again in life. He would sometimes greet her, when she went over to stand beside him; but sometimes he would just stay silent, and watch them.

And she would watch with him.

But then he had gone, with Benedictus and Tsuwabuki, and now she always went alone. He had asked her to watch over those graves in his absence.

She did so everyday.

As they watched the construction of the castle, a voice called both Kira and Kylia's attention to a young man, clad all in armor, rushing towards them from down the street behind them. He had sandy hair, cropped so that it would easily fit inside his helmet, and the clear blue eyes of an honest, kind man. He stopped short of them, and bowed clunkily.

"Milady," he said.

"Sir Eric," she responded, smiling. "How are you?" It was a question she normally asked. Though Eric Schneider was now the Captain of the Stormwind Guard, having been promoted by Kira herself, she did not see him as anything less than a friend. And so she always felt the need to be companionable with him.

"Very well, milady," he said, used to her normal greeting. "Shall I give my report?"

"Okay," she said, standing straighter and giving him her full attention. The report in question was something that Eric gave to her daily—details on the city to military reports that he had collected from throughout the territories. He pulled a packet of papers from a pouch at his side, and his smile seemed to melt away. His tone became businesslike.

"There has been much activity in the north, milady, in the country of Hillsbrad. The Defias Brotherhood, as well as the organization known as the Syndicate, have been acting up lately. They have made not more than four raids on the capital of Hillsbrad, as well as a few on the Forsaken town of Tarren Mill, and several on Southshore. There were few casualties in all instances, and only items of extreme value were taken."

"More of this? What's causing it?" It was not the first time that he had delivered such a report. Many times in the last month had there been reports of the Brotherhood and the Syndicate acting up and attacking small towns and villages in the countries bordering Stormwind and Ironforge. In all instances, there had been few casualties and many objects stolen. No members of either organization (though evidence suggested that they were but one organization under two names) were found at the scenes, and survivors of the attack never fully described the attackers. Only that they wore nothing but black.

"We don't know, milady. Ironforge and Gnomeregan have sent their own spies out, but we can gather nothing. The Brotherhood just slips through their fingers like sand, and the Syndicate is too well armed and too skilled to risk an infiltration. We have nothing on either of them, milady."

Kira sighed, and looked briefly back towards the towering castle, which grew ever more immense and beautiful with each day. Its towers seemed to stretch to the heavens, and were the made of red brick; but the main entrance was slate grey, made of a stone that came from the deepest parts of Stonetalon, and was as hard as rock; before the castle were many wooden spikes, bearing blood-red banners depicting a gold and black symbol—the symbol of the New Alliance. It was quite unlike anything she had ever seen, though one part of it always stood out—the part that Naruto had added.

A golden swirl, in the very middle, emblazoned on the shield of the Alliance and enrobed in the black coils of the Horde emblem.

"Anything else, Sir Eric?"

"No, milady."

He left a moment later, leaving Kira and Kylia alone once more. Kira continued to gaze up at the castle, and wondered what she had to do next.

* * *

"It's clever," said Jiraiya, later. "I'll give you that. It certainly helps you train with small amounts of the stuff—but I think whoever gave it to you didn't know your fighting style." 

Naruto dropped his orange shirt to cover the training seal over his belly. He frowned down at Jiraiya. The room was now empty save for him, Tsunade and Kakashi. Ino and Sakura had taken Tsuwabuki to get something to eat, since the fox was hungry and didn't truly need to be there to hear whatever was going to happen to the blonde. Ino had been forced out because it was official, classified business, and Sakura had joined her—she had yet to tell Naruto that she knew his secret.

"Whaddya mean?"

"You don't do small things, kid. I tried my best to hone your control, but that was with your own _chakra_. The Kyuubi's is far different, and far harder, to control than your own, and I don't know the first thing about manipulating demon _chakra_, never having had it myself. The Kyuubi has such a vast amount of _chakra_ that using it in small quantities is pointless. You'd be better off using your own _chakra_ in that instance. Thus, you need to find some way to train without worrying about using too much of the _chakra._"

"But how am I going to do that?" the blonde asked, crossly.

"Kakashi has a few ways, I should think."

Naruto turned to his former teacher, who had set his book down and was looking at Naruto with his single, black, crow-like eye.

"I have someone for you to meet, Naruto."

* * *

Well, sorry about the wait.

Hope this was a good introduction into the second part of the story. I know a lot of it is probably superfluous detail, but I felt I had to express the changes in each character at some point, and this seemed like the perfect time.

I chose to put it in a second story. It seemed easier to deal with.

As for the last comments on the previous chapter—they were my brothers. I am still of two minds about the pairings, but those will be explored throughout this part.

Roughly two years—a bit more, actually—have passed since Naruto left Konoha. So it is only a little less than the time Naruto came back in canon.

Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter! I look forwards to impressing you as much as I did with the last part. Keep reading!

General Grievous

* * *

Arr. 

-Noz


	2. House of Wood and Memories

**Disclaimer: Great God of Fanfiction! I implore thee to here my call! I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft! Please, might you make it so?**

'_**No'**_

**Damn.**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

'_italics' _denotes technique names and thoughts—they aren't shouted out anymore, as a reviewer made me realize how stupid that is. They are now thought.

* * *

"Wow." 

"Wow, what?"

Ino turned and gave Sakura a sharp, sly look, her lips twisted into a half-amused and half-annoyed smile. Her clear grey eyes quivered, as if she was stopping them from rolling on their own.

"Don't give me that," the blonde girl said, taking a sip from the steaming teacup in front of her. "You know exactly what 'wow' I'm talking about."

Sakura paused in the midst of scratching behind Tsuwabuki's ears. The vixen had been with them ever since they had departed the Hokage's room, several hours earlier, and had gone in search of food and Naruto's strange friend—Benedictus. They had given up eventually, deciding that he'd find his way back somehow, and had sat down at a small teashop. They had just received their tea when Ino uttered the three-letter word, and gave Sakura that unnerving look that told the clever girl that she was going to be treated to one of Ino's gossip sessions.

"I don't, honestly, know that you are trying to say," Sakura retorted, sipping her own tea and glancing away from the Ino's gleaming eyes, full of a Faustian hunger.

"He's hot."

"What?" Sakura looked back up in an instant, meeting Ino's eyes head on.

"Naruto," Ino said. "He's hot. Really hot, from what I can see. Wouldn't you say so?"

"Sure, why not?" said Sakura, suddenly dismissive. She immediately looked away from Ino, and began attending to Tsuwabuki, who was watching the conversation (and likely listening too, as both recalled that Naruto had said she could understand human speech). But Ino wouldn't let it go so swiftly or so easily, and dragged Sakura's attention back to her and the topic.

"He looks a hell of lot manlier, don't you think? And he's taller too. Way taller. He was pretty cool back when he was shorter than both of us, but now that he's taller—just wow, wouldn't you say?"

"I guess," said Sakura, again with the casualness of a discussion about weather or the time of day. She seemed fixated on Tsuwabuki's eyes. They were beautifully amber, and she told the fox so with a soft whisper. Tsuwabuki preened at the attention, nuzzling Sakura's face, though all the while giving her what could only be described as a perfectly knowledgeable, almost frank look. It was obvious that she was quite aware of what Sakura was trying to do, though this too, Sakura ignored.

Frustrated, Ino stopped talking for a moment and stared at the pink-haired girl for a while; thinking of a way that she could get Sakura's interest back in the conversation. It came to her suddenly, and she felt a little ashamed for not thinking of it earlier. It would have certainly been easier for her.

"So hot," she said, "that I may try a hand at him. Don't you think he'd be impressed by my womanly charms?"

"If he were _completely_ brainless, I suppose," said Sakura, sending a mocking look at the other girl, who twitched.

"You're no fun, forehead girl. You're almost as bad as Hinata at making gossip."

"I just don't see the point," said Sakura. "Yes, he's gotten a little hotter, I guess, and he has gotten taller, I suppose; and he has gotten a better fashion sense, yes, and he must be a lot stronger, true, but I just don't…" She stopped, blinking, and frowned at Ino, who sniggered. "That was unfair."

"You said everything, forehead girl," said Ino. "So have your feelings changed?"

Sakura didn't respond.

"I'll take that as a maybe."

Sakura sighed. "Whatever."

"You don't seem to have much opinion on this either way. Aren't you happy to see him?"

"Of course I am!" Sakura said, with particular force that was almost startling. She then shook her head. "I guess it just hasn't sunk in yet. I mean he just appeared so suddenly. I guess the shock hasn't washed off yet." She shook her head. "Though I'll admit it's amazing how much he has changed, isn't it?"

Ino sipped her tea. "Yes. We'll have to gather everyone, and tell them that he's back. They'll be interested in seeing how much he's changed, too."

Sakura smiled, and nodded. Kiba would be chomping at the proverbial bit to find and challenge Naruto to a fight. The dog boy had grown up a bit, no doubt, in the time that Naruto had been gone, but Naruto's sudden presence would no doubt bring back that fiery competition that he felt. And, Sakura thought, amused, with Naruto's new friend, the fox that currently lay by her chair, Kiba would be quite impressed. Or shocked, though the difference would be negligible when the time came. She could almost hear Kiba's first words to Naruto—"It is you, Naruto! I though I smelled you! Let's fight, I want a rematch from last time!"

But the others would be happy as well. They had, after all, devoted much of their time in the past few years to becoming as good as they possibly could, so that when Naruto got back, they would not be so far behind him. Shikamaru and Chouji would be glad to have their friend back, and would likely treat Naruto to a hotpot of some sort when they found out he had returned. Shino—if he were able to recover from not being recognized by the blonde (for she had no doubt that Naruto would find it hard to remember Shino, covered as he was in layers of cloth), would likely try his hand at fighting Naruto at some point too. She had no doubt that Hinata would faint upon sighting Naruto. She had gained much more confidence, but Naruto had the effect of liquefying everything one planned to say or do upon sight or sound of him—and Naruto's changes would definitely have an effect, especially on one as innocent and shy as Hinata.

Lee would jump for joy upon sighting the boy, and he and Gai would proceed to terrify Naruto out of his wits with bad puns and loud exclamations of exultation, usually accompanied by a series of poses, strange backgrounds, and two pairs of gleaming white teeth and upturned thumbs. Tenten would likely greet Naruto with a wave and a laugh, never having spoken much to him anyways. Neji would be silent, but would honor Naruto with a bow or a slight smile—perhaps of challenge, for Sakura guessed that he, like Kiba, was burning for a rematch.

But like them, she just couldn't believe he was back; so silently and unannounced, he had just appeared in Tsunade's office. Though she knew how he had returned, she knew not why he had returned with that man, Benedictus—though she could guess.

Naruto had told them that he had arrived a little over three days prior, in the middle of the desert of the Wind Country. It had not been so far from the Hidden Sand, though Naruto had been too excited to be back to visit beforehand. He had returned thanks to an ingenious device of the gnome's invention—a two-way portal that effectively connected the two worlds together. It allowed people from the other world to go to her and Naruto's world, and vice-versa. Not even Naruto knew the specifics of it ('_too many big words indeed'_ she thought), but all he knew was that he had returned.

And that was enough.

She then turned her attention back to Tsuwabuki, as she sipped her tea. While her mind was on the topic, she could not help but wonder whom the man Kakashi wanted him to meet was. Apparently her former teacher (who was now her comrade, as Team Seven had officially been reformed, and with her being the student of the Hokage and a _chuunin_, and Naruto being an official student of Jiraiya, Kakashi could not be classified as their teacher any longer) had asked this someone quite a while ago about the training necessary. Tsunade approved of him, as did Jiraiya, so Sakura didn't believe it could be anybody too bad.

Still, it made her curious, and she wondered who exactly had the power to help Naruto train the power supposedly uncontrollable—the _chakra _of the Kyuubi.

* * *

"Who's this guy anyways?" Naruto asked, as Kakashi led him through the streets of Konoha, which were now filled with far more people than previously—young couples or large families going out for a night on the town, something Naruto had never had the privilege of doing himself. The sun gleamed behind them, a fiery red, as the sky darkened and the stars began to show. They had only just left the Hokage's office—Naruto and Kakashi were now alone, for Jiraiya had pranced off saying something about "research" (both knew what this meant; one lamented and one was overjoyed), and Tsunade had remained in her office and would be completing the official paperwork for Team Seven's reformation. 

"An acquaintance, of a sorts. An old friend from my ANBU days," said Kakashi, and did not elaborate further. Naruto glanced at him, frowning. Whenever Kakashi did something as such, Naruto would always grow even more interested. It was like the _jounin_ took a sweet, carnal pleasure in stringing Naruto's interest along, never giving him more information than was necessary, until Naruto was ready to explode with excitement. He could almost hear Kakashi's silent mental cackle; so smug it could have darkened the sky.

Naruto fell silent, and to distract himself from Kakashi's personality (which at first had been refreshing, and had now relapsed into being as it always had been—annoying), set himself to absorbing the atmosphere of the village once again. The cool air, the sounds of the surrounding forest, the smells—they continually assaulted him, and just made him realize more and more that he was home.

What made it all the better was that every person they passed—whether man, woman, old or young—gave him a sideways glance, not of hate, but of thinly veiled interest. Some obviously recognized him, from the way their eyes would light up or their mouths would fall slightly open, but the looks never quite frosted over with that frightening hate that he had suffered his entire childhood. It made him smile, to know that they had in at least some way changed their opinion of him.

They left the industrial district of the city, and went out into the sparsely populated surrounding areas—where most of the larger clans had their residences. Naruto kept his eyes out for the Hyuuga compound, but before he saw it, they arrived at a small wooden house, barely bigger than a tool shed. It looked sturdy and well enough off, and sat alone in the middle of a particularly large garden. Naruto glanced around, surprised at how similar the area was to the night elves' forest groves. Though there were far less trees—indeed, only four trees surrounded the house, one at each corner. They stretched high into the air, and were a brilliantly emerald green, so much so that they made the other trees look withered and grey.

The door had a simple knocker, and beside it was a small plaque that simply said "Home", in small, neatly carved letters.

Kakashi walked straight up to the door and gave a single knock. It took but half a moment after the knock for the door to suddenly open, and there appear what was doubtlessly the only occupant of the small house—a man of about Kakashi's age, with deep black hair and big, powerful eyes. He had a straight nose, a smooth, sculpted face, and his height was again about that of Kakashi's. He wore a simple white tunic and black pants. He yawned and rubbed one eye when he saw Kakashi, though the other completely remained alert, and darted between the two visitors, and the area surrounding them, in quick succession.

"Kakashi-san? What's up?" he asked, his voice soft.

"You were sleeping?" said Kakashi, raising his visible brow.

"I just got back from a mission," the man said, defensively. "I was tired."

"Ah," Kakashi retorted, seeming unimpressed. "Tenzo, I have someone for you to meet." He pointed at Naruto. "Uzumaki Naruto, meet Tenzo. Tenzo, Uzumaki Naruto."

"Nice to meet you," said Tenzo, smiling and giving Naruto a small bow.

"You too," said Naruto, bowing but still frowning at the man. This was the guy who was going to help him train with the Kyuubi's _chakra_? How?

"Kakashi-san has told me something of you, and has expressed a wish for me to help with something, I gather? Let's discuss it inside," continued Tenzo, and waved the two past him, into the small house. Kakashi went in immediately, while Naruto followed. Inside, there were some steps, which Naruto and Kakashi descended. Naruto blinked a few times as he remembered how quickly Tenzo had answered the door. He looked back at the man, who smiled at him, and wondered if he had been waiting by the door that entire time.

At the foot of the stairs, there was another door, just as simple. It was ajar, which made Naruto rethink his previous conclusion; but it all stopped when he went through said door, after Kakashi, and into one of the most impressive sights he had ever seen in Konoha.

Within was a gigantic room, rectangular in shape, made entirely of the smoothest, lightest wood, Naruto had ever seen. But what was more was that everything in the room—from the chairs, the tables, the bookcases and desks, as well as the many doors on all sides—seemed to have grown right out of the wood, as if the furniture had grown from seeds like small shrubs. The room itself was smooth and bore nothing that looked like it had been crafted by human hands. The walls and floor were solid wood, as if they too had grown from the earth surrounding the room. The walls were decorated with many scrolls depicting various landscapes and people, painted by a famous artist that Naruto remembered hearing about when he was younger. A fire burned to their right, in a small, tidy fireplace. Naruto frowned, wondering how a fire could be contained in a house made of wood.

"Rather extravagant for one, wouldn't you say?" Kakashi said lightly, gazing at one of the outgrown chairs in passing interest.

"Maybe a little," said Tenzo, scratching the back of his head and grinning sheepishly. "But it's home."

'_A really weird home,'_ Naruto thought, peering in interest at a bookcase, which appeared to have grown out of the wall, to his left. Thankfully the books and rolled up scrolls that adorned it were real. He looked around again, feeling a gentle warmth course through him. Though housing only one place, it did not seem a lonely place. The man, Tenzo, must have been perfectly content with his life, for the room to exude such a homely feeling.

"So Kakashi-san," said Tenzo, sitting himself in one of the chairs, which surrounded a small circular table. "What is it exactly that you wish me to do?"

Kakashi took a seat as well, shifting around a little to get comfortable. Naruto did so as well, finding to his surprise that the chairs were actually rather comfortable. The wood was as soft as a cushion.

"Well," began Kakashi. "As you already know, Naruto is the vessel of the Kyuubi no Yoko. For the past two years, he has been on an extended training trip of a sort, and during that time, that seal weakened greatly, but was thankfully repaired. Unfortunately, it was repaired in a way that renders it difficult for him to use it properly any longer." He looked at Tenzo simply. "Therefore, I come to you, to help him in this area."

"But wouldn't it be better if it remained unusable?" Tenzo asked softly, glancing once at Naruto. "The Kyuubi—no, all of the _bijuu,_ are extraordinarily dangerous. Their powers are something that we cannot hope to master, or even begin to fathom. In my opinion, it would be better for it to simply stay like this—can he not simply train using his own _chakra_?"

"You're forgetting," said Kakashi, in that languid, passive way, "one of the most important rules of being a shinobi—that it is necessary for one to use all tools…every weapon at his disposal." Kakashi glanced at Naruto as well, his single eye lingering over Naruto's belly. "That is the reason the _jinchuuriki _were created. Naruto may have to face immensely powerful opponents in his future, and it would be best for him to have some semblance of control over the Kyuubi's _chakra_. You're essentially his only way of even coming close to that, unless he wishes to spend the rest of his life training. I guarantee you that Naruto is a quick learner. I may have a way also of vastly increasing his training speed; though in order to do this, it would be best to have some control over the demon's _chakra_." He leaned forwards, his single eye piercing into Tenzo's large powerful ones. "Besides, you should know well this rule, shouldn't you? After all, were you not given a powerful, yet detestable, tool yourself?"

Tenzo stared a little longer into Kakashi's eyes. Then, he sighed, and sat back, frowning. The chair seemed to bend with him, to Naruto's surprise, and so he was leaning quite far back, despite there being no hinges that allowed the chair to move in such a way. But Kakashi's words made Naruto look at the man even harder, trying to strip and peel away the wooden exterior that was Tenzo's face. He suddenly had a desire to know exactly what this man was—though something stopped him, and no matter how he tried, he could not look past the man's eyes, so like knots in the trunk of a tree.

"I was," Tenzo finally said. "And I have no qualms in helping him out; but I don't have the time, Kakashi-san. As an ANBU, I have duties every day, and there is still a considerable backlog of missions that must be taken care of. I don't know how I'm going to find time…"

"Time isn't an issue," said Kakashi, smiling at the man, who blinked in surprise. "I've already asked the Hokage—she's going to assign you to this as a special mission. I don't know when, probably when you've finished your other duties. But the point is that she wants Naruto as in control as possible, when the time comes for him to return to active duty."

"Is that so?" Tenzo said. "If that's the case, then I'll––"

"Wait a minute!"

Both men turned at once to Naruto, who treated them to a fierce glare that made Kakashi want to chuckle, though he contained himself at the risk of Naruto getting even angrier.

"Who the heck is this guy, anyways, Kakashi-sensei? You haven't said a thing about him, other than his name, and how the heck is he going to be able to help me with the Kyuubi?"

Tenzo looked at Kakashi, who merely stared back, and gave him a slight nod. Tenzo sighed, and turned back to Naruto. This time, Naruto saw a glimpse of something beyond the dark eyes, but could not make it out.

"I was gifted," he said, finally, his face stern, "with certain abilities. One of them," he gestured at their surroundings, "was this: the ability to manipulate the element of Wood—something that no other shinobi can do. The other is a little bit more complicated. It is the ability to control, using a certain medium, the power of a demon. Specifically, the _bijuu_, one of which lurks inside of you. Thus, I can suppress, and with my own _chakra_ and willpower, control thatforce inside of you."

Naruto's eyes searched the man's face a moment longer, before he nodded and sat back. "Didn't know there was such an ability."

"It's not at all common," said Tenzo. The strange look crossed his face again. "It's a _kekkai genkai_, if you will."

"In any case," said Kakashi, "we just came by to tell you that. I have no doubt the Hokage will inform you when the terms of your mission begin." He stood, prompting the others to rise as well.

"Of course," said Tenzo, smiling. He looked at Naruto and gave a small bow of his head. "I look forward to working with you, Naruto-kun." His face then darkened considerably, becoming ghoulish, like a frightening wooden mask used by old superstitious women to scare away children or evil spirits. His eyes went wide so suddenly that Naruto leapt back in terror. "But know that I'm a bit different from Kakashi—I am not above using fear to motivate my students."

Whilst Naruto clutched his chest, still staring in horror and the man, whose face returned instantly to normal, Tenzo then looked at Kakashi. "Are you sure you can't stay?"

"Shouldn't you be asleep? I thought you were tired?" Kakashi retorted.

"Well," Tenzo said, sheepishly. "It's rare that I have visitors. Perhaps you'll stay for a cup of tea, or something?"

Kakashi glanced at Naruto, and stared at him in a way that Naruto first thought questioning, as if asking him if he wanted to stay, but before he could answer, Kakashi turned back to Tenzo, and gave a small shake of his head. "Sorry," he said, "but Naruto's going to need a good night's rest. Besides, he needs to get his apartment back, don't you, Naruto?"

"Oh yeah…" the blonde mumbled. He had hardly given it, or its kindly occupants, a thought since he had reentered the city. On that note, he realized that he hadn't even seen Ichiraku's, and felt horrified because of it. So it was with this guilt and primordial hunger that Naruto left Tenzo's home, with Kakashi by his side. The young man waved them out, smiling serenely the entire time. Naruto decided that he liked the older man, despite his strangeness and frightening face. He was now interested in seeing how this man could help him with his training.

Kakashi followed him back to the city center, stopping when Naruto could smell the familiar scent—so long denied to him—of the wondrous Ichiraku's Ramen Stand, where Naruto had spent some of the best days of his childhood. The smells—of boiling water; of cooking meat, chicken and shrimp halfway between soft and rare and delicious and juicy; vegetables that smelt as fresh as spring; of a plethora of spices—some hot and spicy which tingled the nose, others mild which made the mouth water, others sweet which made the eyes twitch and the body shiver; even of the sweat—the manly musk of Teuchi and the sweet perfume of Ayame, as well as two other scents (which he could not identify); the smells made him close his eyes and remember everything that had occurred there, and it was only Kakashi's voice which prevented him from launching himself towards the site of these wonderful scents, like distant dreams of the utmost pleasure.

"I need to head back," said Kakashi, setting a hand on Naruto's shoulder. He smiled down at the blonde, his one eye curved into a sideways crescent moon. "But before you head off to gorge yourself, you should know that I'm glad you're back, Naruto." He gave Naruto a pat on the head, making the blonde raise an eyebrow at the strange gesture.

"You should also know," said Kakashi, suddenly turning and walking away. "That we'll be having our first team meeting tomorrow—same time, same place. Don't bother eating breakfast. Good night!"

He was gone before Naruto could say much else than a simple "good night". But his words, like so many others today, awoke within him a memory, of long ago. It was a very specific one, and one that he cherished among all the rest as special. He grinned to himself, as he turned and walked towards Ichiraku.

They would definitely not lose this time.

* * *

Undrig grimaced, a look that the monstrous tauren, Kaine, mimicked beside him. The dwarf possessed a dark, bushy beard and powerful eyes of the same color. His face was shaped like crudely cut granite, and was adorned by a small scar across his forehead. He wore shining, polished armor and a tabard depicting a glittering silver fist, clenched and raised like a general's gauntleted fist at the commencement of a charge; a hammer, forged of a slightly darker metal, hung by his side. His hair and face dripped water from the pouring rain, which made pinging sounds off his and his companions' armors. They stood at the shoreline of a place where Kaine and Undrig had been quite recently; when neither had ever held any hopes of returning. For, despite its recent liberation, it still remained as more a graveyard than a place fit for any sort of habitation. 

Theramore.

He looked sideways at Kaine, who was still surveying the area with the same distaste that he had been previously. Kaine was big for his age, even as a tauren; his body was the color of redwood bark and his hair that of a nightsaber's fur, and it was tied into two tails which adorned each side of his head; two horns, curved and sharp, sprouted from just above his floppy ears; and his eyes were of dark amber. He wore a big, black tunic with immense pauldrons, with a tabard of the Horde over it, and black and silver leggings that ended above his hooves.

"This place gives me the cr…croo…cri…creeps," Kaine rumbled in a low voice, stumbling over his limited knowledge of Common and glancing at his companions, ten of which were tauren, and half that orc. They continually glanced at the Undrig's party, consisting of eight humans and eight dwarves. The leaders of both parties were becoming increasingly aware that the nature of those glances was never entirely friendly.

"Aye," Undrig agreed. "Not a pleasant place, indeed." He would ignore it for now. They had more important things to do.

"Lord Thrall said that this would be a coballora…collabora…collaborative process between us. He said that we should build the settlements near each other. But I don't think I'd want to use this place, do you?"

"Strategically," grunted Undrig. "It's the best in the 'ole marsh. It gives us immediate escape plans, and full view o' the coastline. If we were gonna build anythin', I'd think it'd be best ta' do it here. It'd take some work, o' course."

"Some?" mumbled Kaine; the thought of boring manual labor appalled him.

"Aye, some, lad." Undrig glanced around again, wiping some rain from his eyes. They had all of the materials necessary to begin construction right away, and a sufficient number of people to do it. He was supposed to report back to Kira and King Magni on a regular basis, letting them know when to send troops to garrison and man the settlement they were building. Kaine was supposed to do the same thing for Thrall and his grandfather. In Undrig's opinion, construction shouldn't take long. The tauren had brought druids and shamans to manipulate the wood and earth, and the dwarves and humans had brought the supplies—wood, metal, and already cut stone used to construct houses, repair existing ones, and rebuild the small castle that Jaina Proudmoore had once resided in, during her tenure on the island.

But, that begged the question—did they want to remain in this place, so stained in blood and memory? Though not superstitious, Undrig felt something…off, about the land around him. He did not know if it was simply the lingering death and decay, which had cleared some since Onyxia's death, or something else, which he could not explain. Either way, he did not know if placing a settlement here would be worthwhile. Yet, when he thought about it, there was nothing to suggest that he wasn't simply being foolish. Nothing lived in this place anymore, and therefore it was perfectly safe.

With that in mind, he turned back to his group. "We'll be stayin'. Unload the boats and set up camp, we'll start work when this rain lifts up." He glanced at Kaine. "Alright wit you?"

"Yeah," Kaine said, after a pause to understand the dwarf's accent. He turned to his own group, and said in Orcish, "all right, you guys too. Once the rain stops, we'll get working."

Both groups responded without qualm, taking one last look at each other, before departing in their respective directions. Kaine sighed at the sight of them.

"Geez, can't they just get along?"

"Takes a long time, lad," began Undrig, turning to follow his own group, "to overcome grudges. Just our luck that we have few, eh?"

"Yeah," grinned Kaine. "Seeya later, shorty."

"You too, steak."

"Steak?"

Undrig laughed as he walked away. He began to speed up, to catch up to his group, when something on the ground caught his eye, even though it shouldn't have been out of place.

It was a pair of footprints, freshly made in the muddy ground. It took him a moment to realize what exactly was wrong with them. For, rather than a steady procession of them across the ground, as a man's (for the size could be nothing but a man) should have been, there was but a pair of them, in the middle of the ground. No footprints surrounded them—for the other footprints of Undrig's companions were far off to the side, where he had been heading. They were simply there, as if someone had dropped from the sky, landing without a sound, and then departed the same way. He blinked at them a few times, and then looked around sharply. He saw nothing, and felt no presences. The footprints were fresh—for already, they were being filled with water from the constant downpour, and would fade in time.

The feeling of wrongness returned, as he walked back towards the boats, a hand upon his hammer with every step.

* * *

"_A settlement. So close to HQ-1. Do we report?"_

"_**Doesn't matter. When the time comes, we'll finish them off. The preparations are almost complete. We must return—we have to mobilize a hell of a lot sooner."**_

"_Agreed."_

* * *

"We thought we'd find you here," said Ino, smirking. 

Naruto swiveled his head, his mouth so frightfully full of noodles that it looked like an inflated puffer fish with big blue eyes. It made Ino nearly double over in laughter upon seeing it, while Sakura attempted in vein to smother her own guffaws, to little effect. The two girl's reactions confused Naruto for a second, before he swallowed the ramen in his mouth, and glared at them both.

"What's so funny?" he asked, squinting and frowning at them in a way that reminded Sakura immediately of his younger self; with his petulant whine and vulpine eyes. Her laughter died away (while Ino's continue for a moment longer), but she still smiled at him, for a moment lost in her memories. This distraction allowed Ino to answer for her, whereupon she likened his previous face to a porcupine who'd had a little too much for dinner. He huffed at her words, muttering, "Geez, so now you can't enjoy ramen without being made fun of…"

"Oh stop teasing him, you two," a voice called from inside the restaurant. Ayame appeared—with her pretty brown eyes, smooth unmarked face (a remarkable feat for being surrounded by such unhealthy, greasy food all the time), wearing her red and white uniform, and smiling widely at Naruto—wider than she had smile for either of the two girls during their constant visits in Naruto's absence. "Naruto-kun hasn't been here for over two years! Let him enjoy his ramen without animalizing his face, okay?" She giggled at Naruto, who gave her a mock glower. "How does it taste, Naruto-kun?"

"If Heaven does exist," he whispered, the entire world his bowl of ramen, "then this must be a piece of it…or something—It's awesome!" He attacked it again; making Ayame giggle and the two other girls roll their eyes.

"That's the spirit, Naruto-kun!" another voice called—that of Teuchi, Ayame's father. Teuchi had a kind, wrinkled face with permanently squinted eyes and a broad grin. His voice, not unlike Naruto's, was loud and powerful, and he overflowed with affection and cheer—it was no doubt due to his favorite customer returning. "Tonight, it's on the house! Eat as much as you like, okay kid? You girls want something?"

Taking seats on either side of the blonde, Sakura and Ino nodded to the old man.

"Chicken," said Sakura.

"Vegetable," said Ino, drawing a mystified look from Naruto, as if wondering how anybody could dare to get the vegetarian option. The only time he enjoyed such things was when there was no other choice—such as the _emokanda_ of the tauren, which contained nothing but vegetables. But he kept this to himself, as no doubt Ino would reply with something like "needing to watch her figure".

Teuchi nodded to the two of them, and walked off. Tsuwabuki, who lay at the foot of Naruto's stool, yawning widely, turned up to her companion then.

'**_Do you know how much I had to listen to these two talk about you?'_ **the fox groused.

Naruto blinked, chewing, as he looked down at the fox. "A lot?"

'**_Beyond that. They just wouldn't shut up. The only reason I stayed was for the petting and the food they kept giving me.' _**

"Yeah, food is good."

Sakura and Ino stared at the boy and the fox he was conversing with. It was rather odd listening to someone seemingly converse with himself, while eating as much ramen as he physically could. They simply waited and watched as Naruto and Tsuwabuki recounted their days to each other. They found out (and subsequently discovered that it had no effect on either of them, for they had no idea who Tenzo was) whom Naruto would be training with, and when. Sakura would remember later to ask who this person was, as she felt curious as to what kind of person he was.

"You're going to have to find everyone, and tell them that you're back," said Ino, looking sideways at Naruto a little while after she and Sakura received their own steaming bowl's of ramen.

Naruto swallowed another mouthful of his fourth bowl of ramen, and nodded in agreement. "Yeah. I haven't seen any of them for ages! I definitely want to know how they've been doing since I've been gone." He then rubbed the back of his head. "And Gaara, too. I should have seen him when I first got back, but I was too excited. I'll should go see him sometime later."

"Yes," Sakura agreed, almost absently. "You should."

They lapsed into silence for a while, as they ate. But soon conversation picked up once more, as Sakura began to tell Naruto about everything that had happened since he had left. He had heard some of it from Gamakichi, though it was nothing close to the full story. When it arrived on the topic of the _Chuunin_ _Exams_, Naruto was both delighted and dismayed to find that all of his friends—including Sakura—where now of _Chuunin _rank or even higher.

"Wow, even Shikamaru doesn't seem as lazy as before…" Naruto said, shaking his head.

"He's shaped up a bit," said Ino, grinning. "He's still the same lazy bastard as before, but he's got a lot more responsibility now. He's even been keeping up with Chouji and I, as we felt just as much need as Kiba, Neji and Lee to keep up with you. He's had duties as an Academy instructor, _Chuunin Exam_ proctor, and he was even made part of the special task force that Hokage-sama created—the _Niju Shotai_. He's been a lot busier than most of us, though to be fair, he probably has to be or else he wouldn't do a thing."

Naruto nodded, laughing. "And Neji's a _jounin! _That's amazing! Geez…" he suddenly sagged in his seat. "I'm the only guy who's still a _genin_, aren't I?"

"Yep!" said Sakura, patting him on the shoulder. "But don't worry. So's Konohamaru, Moegi and Udon—you'll have company!" She laughed at the scrunched face Naruto gave her, like a petulant child ready and willing to cry.

"That's harsh," he mumbled, lashing out with his chopsticks and snatching a fishcake from Sakura's ramen. "Take that!"

Sakura sweat-dropped. Maybe he wasn't so mature after all…

Naruto chewing his stolen prize then asked the two girls where Benedictus had gone.

"We don't know," said Ino, frowning. "Hokage-sama asked us to find him, but so far nobody's remembered seeing a strange old man in golden robes anywhere in the city. He might have left…"

"Nah," Naruto muttered. "He's got some important business here with Tsunade-baba. He can't leave until that's finished."

"Quite right," said Benedictus, to Ino's left. "And for your information, I was merely familiarizing myself with the city. It's quite beautiful, and everyone here is so friendly! Ah, miss, might have I some of that soup, as well? It smells delicious!"

While Ayame did so, frowning slightly, as she didn't remember the old man being there before, the other three processed the old man's casual, yet sudden, appearance each at their own speeds. At around roughly the same time, just a few seconds after Ayame had placed a bowl of chicken ramen in front of Benedictus, all three suddenly shouted out in surprise, and whipped around to face the old man. He stared at them perplexedly, a spoonful of noodles mere inches from his mouth, wondering exactly the nature of their sudden outburst.

"Where the hell did you come from?" was approximately what each person had reached, with varying degrees of profanity and volume.

"As I said, the village—and such a wonderful village it is! The hot springs are quite divine, I must say, though I there was a loud ruckus in the woman's side while I was there. Some poor man, I think, was brutally ejected from there for a reason I cannot fathom." He shook his head. "Women can be so violent!"

Naruto rolled his eyes, knowing that the "poor man" so violently ejected was probably his former teacher. Sakura and Ino reached that exact same conclusion, though Sakura's had the added statistical probability of it being Jiraiya (and the percentage was quite high).

"As for my important business," said Benedictus. "You need worry not. I have already set up a time with your Hokage to discuss it. It shall be sometime tomorrow, and I'm hopeful that she will be receptive of the idea."

"She will," Naruto affirmed, grinning his grin and returning to his ramen, while Sakura and Ino exchanged confused glances, not knowing what the two were discussing. Sakura would have asked, but Benedictus took that moment to stand.

"Well, I'll be off. See you tomorrow, Naruto I hope that you will join when I meet with the Hokage, if that is possible. It concerns you just as much as I. Good night!"

The man departed, leaving an empty bowl and three severely confused teenagers behind. Naruto sighed, placing his head on the counter and wondering how it was that he knew so many crazy old men. Sakura stared, frowning, after Benedictus; did Naruto just attract strangeness, or was it just coincidence? Ino simply yawned, and stood up off her stool.

"I'd better head to bed as well. See you two later. I'll be sure to tell Shikamaru and Chouji when I next see them that you're back!" She bent down and gave Tsuwabuki a final pat on the head and a scratch behind the ears, before walking off, her hips swaying attractively with each step. Sakura frowned after the blonde girl, and stole a glance at Naruto, who had returned to his ramen after saying goodbye to the girl. She smiled at that, and finished her own ramen.

Finally, it came to a time when Naruto had finally eaten his fill, and let out a relaxed sigh. "That hit the spot, old man, Ayame-chan! I missed you guys so much."

"You mean you missed our ramen," giggled Ayame. "But we get the point. We missed you too, Naruto-kun. We had Sakura-chan and the rest of your friends to keep us company, but it just hasn't been the same without you." She smiled. "Thank you for returning."

Naruto grinned at her. "Thanks for waiting! I'll be back tomorrow, so have a bowl ready, okay?"

Teuchi laughed; a great, booming sound that rang of exultation and amusement. "Just remember it isn't free tomorrow, Naruto-kun! Seeya later! And goodnight to you too, Sakura-chan."

Sakura said her goodbyes as well, as she, Naruto, and Tsuwabuki left the little stand and walked down the street—now completely black, save for the scattered streetlights and lighted windows in the many apartment buildings around. They walked side by side, with Tsuwabuki padding behind them, sniffing at everything she encountered, and then commenting on it to Naruto, who would either ignore her or laugh. Sakura stayed mostly silent, but as they got closer and closer to Naruto's apartment, she grew increasingly anxious. It was the perfect time, she realized. She glanced towards Naruto, who, as he had been doing since he arrived, was reveling in the sights and smells of the city—_his_ city, in _his _world.

"Naruto," she suddenly said, unable to hold it any longer. "I have something to tell you."

Naruto blinked, and looked sideways at her. Her tone was serious enough to send a nervous chill down his back. It was not the chill he got when he had said something wrong to her—in fact, he wasn't sure exactly what caused it. What she was going to say was not something trivial or something to begin a conversation—indeed, it did not even feel like what she said was something such as confessing her feelings or asking him on a date (though he thought both such things had a one-in-a-million chance of happening); she had something much more important to tell him, and she sounded almost afraid to do so. In the back of his mind, a fear lurked like a monstrous predator, silent and swift. The fear, though beaten back and wounded severely by the many feelings and experiences Naruto had had in Azeroth—still remained, alive in the many shadows of his subconscious. Her words had given it back some strength, and her tone, which sounded almost frightened, and he wondered if what she had to say would finally unleash it; or completely destroy it.

"Yeah?" he said, wishing he had some ramen to swallow, to hide a dread-filled gulp.

Sakura stopped for a moment, unsure of how to go on. But a moment later, she gulped and said softly, her voice ringing in the silent, even though it was barely a whisper, like the beating wings of a raven, taking flight into the late night sky:

"I know."

* * *

There was a sound of twinkling bells—sweet and memorable, which sent shivers of excitement down the spines of Naruto and Sakura. For it called back memories of a time which seemed lifetimes ago—when they hadn't been a team, but a jumble of inexperienced fools ready to commit to one of the most dangerous lifestyles in the world. 

"Remember," said Kakashi, his eye steady and hard like obsidian. "You have to come at me with the intent to kill, if you think you can get these bells from me. There's still two of them—but I expect both of you to be able to get them." He looped the bells on his belt, just beside his weapons pouch. He then looked at Naruto. "Where's your fox?"

"Hunting," Naruto said. "'Sides, I wanted to do this myself, and she knew that."

Kakashi smiled.

Both teenagers were tensed like predators preparing to strike. Both had adopted similar looks as well—eyes as hard and determined as Kakashi's, but filled with a fiery power that could only be described as youth: something Kakashi no longer had. It made him smile, beneath his mask, seeing both his students in such a state—because, like them, he remembered the first time he had given them this task. He remembered the determined, yet nervous and frightened stare of Sakura, who as soon as he had mentioned "intent to kill", had seized up and looked like a deer ready to bolt. He remembered, too, the annoyed, smoldering, and petulant glare of Naruto—someone filled with immense potential, who had raised himself by his own morals and code, but who hadn't any clue of how to begin a fight properly, especially against a man obviously superior to him in strength. And he remembered how they had both fought: apart, independent, both without relying on each other or even contemplating banding together. Now, he noticed that both stood in almost similar stances, and seemed two halves of the same whole. Kakashi knew that if he attacked one, the other would come to the rescue.

But even more was the presence of something else, a bond that the two now shared, that hadn't been present before this very morning. Kakashi realized that something had to have happened between when he had left Naruto, and when he had met both on the bridge that morning. When he had seen them, they had been resting on opposite sides of the railing, silent until he walked up and barked in tandem how late he was. Nothing had seemed different at first, yet between them there seemed to be an understanding that Kakashi could not identify. He would ask them, once this was over, what had happened—though already he had a suspicion creeping in the back of his thoughts, like a great shinobi preparing for an assassination.

Yes, he decided, both had changed.

Now it was time to see how much.

"One more thing," he said, slipping into a ready stance himself, his legs bent and spread apart. He then reached up and to both their surprises, pulled up his _hitai-ate_, revealing his left eye; where the crimson, whirling _Sharingan_ iris filled it.

"I won't hold back this time. Now, I'll come at _you_ with the intent to kill."

Kakashi suddenly vanished, and the battle began.

Naruto and Sakura leaped away from each other, for that was where Kakashi immediately struck. A kunai, as fast as a card in a magician's trick, flickered into the silver-haired man's hand, which he stabbed at Naruto. But an instant later Naruto's _kodachi_, Magni's Pride, literally flew into his palm and deflected the iron dagger with such violent force that Kakashi was nearly unbalanced.

Naruto kicked at the man in that instant, striking him in the stomach. Kakashi gasped, flying back, only to burst into smoke and disappear. A log struck the ground in his place, causing Naruto to silently swear. He looked about, his nose twitching; it was nowhere nearly as good as Tsuwabuki's, or even Kiba's, but it did well enough. When he finally caught a whiff, he had only time to shout, "Sakura-chan! Below!"

In another second, he realized he had reacted a second too late—not in alerting Sakura, but in realizing she already knew.

The ground burst apart in the most violent explosion Naruto had seen in quite a while. For nearly four meters in each direction and almost three meters deep the ground was reduced to rubble by a single, monstrously powerful punch. Kakashi, approximately three meters deep beneath the earth, gawked at Sakura's attack; but nowhere near as much as Naruto, who stumbled back from the force of the punch, his eyes wide and his jaw gaping a meter long. Sakura thought nothing of it—though she would later lament how weak it was, in comparison to Tsunade's usual strikes.

"Naruto! Go now!"

The shout brought Naruto back to reality, and he leapt into the new crater, his blade now sheathed. Kakashi recovered just in time to block Naruto's fist, which had nearly struck his face. He twisted it to the side, intending to cause pain, but suddenly realized that he couldn't. Naruto's arm, for that instant, seemed to have turned to solid stone. It allowed Naruto yet another opening, in which he suddenly struck Kakashi in the chest—his fist became but a blur, hitting Kakashi so many times that his ribs nearly cracked.

But, being a _jounin_, Kakashi was not so easily defeated. Before Naruto could hit him just one more time, his hand shout out, blocking the hit. Then, using his entire body weight, he leaned to the side and heaved Naruto away from him. The blonde flew past Sakura, who dashed at Kakashi and struck at him with another fist, filled with such _chakra _that it would finish what Naruto had started in a single punch.

Kakashi ducked the punch, so that it caught naught but a tuft of his hair, and then struck upwards with his own fist, sinking it into Sakura's stomach. Leaving her bereft of air, Kakashi grabbed her arm and threw her in Naruto's direction.

But Naruto was not there.

'_Amazing,'_ gasped Kakashi, his _Sharingan_ whirling and searching, all of his senses open for signs of his loudest student. '_His speed is amazing and that earlier hardening technique…he's still full of surprises._' He clutched his ribs. '_He got sixteen punches in, all within a few seconds. And Sakura's power is unbelievable. It'd take only one hit from her to go down.'_

The bells tinkled in the wind, still attached to Kakashi's belt. Kakashi suddenly turned, his _Sharingan _sighting his quarry. He lifted a hand, just in time to block a particularly strong punch from Naruto, enough to numb his arm. In the same instant, he turned his head, crossing his left arm over his right to make a hand seal.

'_Kage Bunshin no jutsu'_

Two more Kakashis appeared, blocking hits from two more Narutos. All three blondes cursed in unison at their failure, as Kakashi and his clones thrust them away. Kakashi pursued the original Naruto, delivering a powerful kick into Naruto's stomach. Not given enough time to harden it in the same way as before—using the technique taught to him by Thrall, and the basis of the Earth Style—_Kongou_, Naruto flew backwards, letting out a violent spasm of coughing.

But Sakura appeared again, having recovered from Kakashi's earlier attack, punched at the _jounin _repeatedly, in an attempt to catch him with just one. But Kakashi's _Sharingan_ saw each one, and since none of them were comparable to Naruto's amazing new attack speed, he saw them as if she was punching through molasses, slow and perfectly predictable. He caught her arm, twisting it successfully, and aimed to jab a finger into the back of her neck, where a pressure point would render her unconscious.

But seconds before he did, he heard the sound of twinkling bells.

He released Sakura, pushing her away, and then jumped up, barely avoiding Naruto. The boy's hand was outstretched, attempting to grab the bells; instead, he sped beneath Kakashi, and grabbed hold of something very different.

It was soft and round, about the size of an apple, and very warm. Yet, it took both Naruto and Sakura half a second to realize what had happened, and unfortunately (for Naruto), it was Sakura who reacted first.

"PERVERT!"

A drop of sweat rolled down the back of Kakashi's head. One moment both his students were fine, in the midst of an important battle, and the next Naruto lay nearly comatose on the ground, while Sakura clutched her hands to her chest, her face as red as her shirt.

"Geez, you kids know how to destroy such glorious tension, don't you?" he muttered. "The effect is now totally lost."

"Tell that to Naruto," said Sakura, waspishly. "And here I was thinking you'd gotten less perverted, not being around Jiraiya-san."

"But it was an accident…" Naruto mumbled with his face still firmly implanted in the dirt.

"Do you guys plan to continue?" Kakashi asked, raising an eyebrow. "I could get the book out, you know."

Naruto turned his face up, frowning at Kakashi. "When did we stop?" And vanished in a puff of smoke.

Kakashi's eyes widened, as a group of Naruto doppelgangers appeared around him, as suddenly as a gust of wind. His _Sharingan _saw them as they rushed up, but their speed was so amazing that he still could barely register them; it was the ultimate defense against the prediction power of the _Sharingan_, something Gai and Lee always put to great effect. Naruto, moving not quite as fast as Gai at his best, was still fast enough for even the most skilled of _Sharingan_ users to be wary of. Kakashi could see evidence of _chakra_ manipulation in the technique, but it was slight, only enough to enhance the muscles. Whoever had taught Naruto the technique had taught it well—well enough that even someone with such naturally poor _chakra_ control as Naruto could master it.

But still, his _Sharingan _saved him. In the scant seconds before they could attack, he thrust his hands together in another seal, he released a controlled burst of _chakra_ summoning the water from the nearby pond straight to him.

'_Suiton: Suijinheki!'_

The water coalesced around Kakashi in a perfect hemisphere, dispelling some clones as it rushed from the pond to the area surrounding Kakashi. The rest were unable to attack, and were dispelled a moment later, as Kakashi leapt from the barrier and slashed them to ribbons with a pair of kunai.

But his students had vanished.

'_Hah, so they've gone into hiding, huh? They have definitely changed. Hiding isn't Naruto's style.' _He shook his head. '_And that Kage Bunshin surprised me. I thought I'd be able to tell the difference, but he must have used Kawarimi so quickly that I couldn't register it.'_

He looked around again, his breathing beginning to slow. "Well, if it's hide and seek, then I'll play," he said, and in a flicker of movement, was gone.

* * *

"Ouch," mumbled Naruto, clutching his stomach. "He's faster than I remember." 

"He's using his _Sharingan,_" whispered Sakura, glancing about. They were hidden within the foliage of one of the trees surrounding the area they had just fought in. Sakura was perched at the very end of a large branch, using her_ chakra_ to keep her balance, while Naruto sat against the trunk, frowning.

"If we had kept going, we could've gotten those bells easily."

"We couldn't have kept that up for long," said Sakura. "Well, maybe you could have, but Kakashi-sensei isn't that foolish. He'd retreat and try to gain a surprise attack."

"He's good at that," Naruto agreed, running a hand through his hair and frowning even harder.

"He's more than good," said Sakura. "But we'll have to be better than that to get those bells, especially with that eye of his. He could even see through that technique of yours—the one you use to gain all of that speed."

"_Kazaashi," _Naruto said, nodding. "I can't use it for long, 'cause it'll start draining my stamina like no tomorrow, but it's probably the only thing I got against that stupid _Sharingan_." He grinned suddenly. "…Right now, at least."

Sakura glanced back at Naruto, who met her eyes squarely. They then shared a small smirk that only teammates could. Kakashi had been right—they did have an understanding.

'_I know. About the Kyuubi.'_

The words that Sakura had spoken the previous night had revived Naruto's most awful fear for a moment—a moment where he had never felt so afraid or vulnerable in his life. He had had no idea what she was going to say or do. Hurtful words? Disgust? Outright hatred?

Or the worst of all: those unbearably cold eyes from his past?

But none had occurred. She had turned away from him, and began to walk off.

'_S-Sakura-chan?'_

Stopping for a moment, she looked over her shoulder.

'_Idiot, what were you expecting? I don't care about that, and never will. But don't expect some candy-coated words or sympathy—'cause I know you don't need either. We're friends, Naruto—teammates. And you always will be. I know who you are, we all do. You having some stupid giant fox in your stomach isn't going to change that.'_

She was smiling.

Though he did not know how long it had taken her to come to that conclusion, her words had struck him with the force of an arrow. It pierced straight through to his subconscious, and in one blow felled that awful fear he had harbored for so long. Left standing there by himself, Naruto had felt a joy: an unbelievable, unexplainable joy that had seemed to carry such power as to lift him from his feet and into the air. He had heard the words directly from his friend, his teammate—and she didn't care. She would not look on him with fear or disgust; her eyes told him that much. Though neither had said a word about it the next time they had met, they had come to a new understanding. As a result, both now felt like proper teammates—there were no more secrets between them, now. No fear clutched at him now, and he knew that when the time came, he'd tell his other friends.

And it had all been done with but a few simple words—no tears or overflowing emotions—just words, and that smile and those eyes that he knew he could trust with everything he had.

There was no only one thing missing from the picture; but that would return in time. Naruto had promised it.

"Right now," said Sakura, in the present, "we need some way of surprising him."

"I've got something that'll make me practically invisible," Naruto said, frowning.

Sakura shook her head. "He'll see it. If it uses _chakra_, then he'll be able to use his _Sharingan _to see right through it. We need something else…"

Naruto thought a moment, before his eyes lit up. He gave her a wide grin and said, "I know what to do…!" He gave a soft cackle of delight then. "Don't worry about finding him either, I got that covered. We just need to be really quick about it, okay?"

"Right," said Sakura, leaning in. "What is it?"

* * *

'_They've gotten better. Even Naruto has gotten pretty good at keeping himself quiet and out of sight,' _Kakashi thought, leaping from the branch he was on and landing upon another a few feet opposite him. 

In the forest around him, he could find no sign of his two students—a remarkable feat, in his opinion. They had completely evaded his senses, and it was coming to the point where he would consider summoning Pakkun and his other nin-dogs to come and aid him. But he was curious. He wanted to know how they would play this out. They had a scant amount time before he would call the whistle on them, for he didn't intend to let them take forever in their plan; but he was curious as to how they would go about this, in taking the two bells that now hung, jingling with every leap, upon his belt.

He suddenly stopped. There was a rustle of trees beneath him. Frowning, but not foolish enough to go himself, he summoned a _Kage Bunshin_, and sent it into the bushes below.

There was a sudden popping sound, as his clone was dispelled, and a second later Kakashi leapt from the tree, and away from the bushes. He hadn't quite caught sight what had killed his clone, though he suspected that it had been Naruto, using a new trick he had learned in the other world. He glanced around, now at his level, searching for Sakura—where Naruto was, she wouldn't be far.

Something streaked below him, faster than he could turn to see it, and not even his _Sharingan_ was able to catch even the slightest sight of it. It was fast. Naruto, indeed.

The next branch, or rather the tree itself, he landed on suddenly shook madly. In another second, it began to topple backwards, and Kakashi, wishing to confront his student, fell with it. When it landed, with a crash that sent perched birds flying into the skies above the forest, Sakura attacked.

Her fist splintered the trunk of the tree Kakashi had been standing on, in a cloud of wood dust and shards. Kakashi dodged the punch with ease, cartwheeling away from the pink-haired girl, and flinging a cloud of shuriken as he did. Sakura back-flipped to avoid the iron stars, and charged at Kakashi again. Kakashi drew a kunai and ran to meet her, just as something large and silver appeared at on his right, where his _Sharingan_ could not see.

Kakashi's eyes, red and black, became wide.

Tsuwabuki charged at Kakashi, slashing with one razor sharp claw at his legs. He leapt back to avoid it, as well as Sakura's sudden punch, landing on the soft mossy earth. He lifted a kunai from one of his pouches, twirling it as she rushed towards him—it was then that he realized, however, that he had been tricked. He thrust the weapon with killing force at the girl, letting it fly from his hand and strike her in the heart.

She was gone in a puff of smoke.

'_Kage Bunshin again! I didn't notice it at first, because Naruto's gotten much better at using it—and that henge masked its true presence, so where…!'_

The answer came to him with a shout, and the sweet sounds of tinkling bells.

"Oi! Kakashi-sensei! Time's up, we win!"

He whirled, to find Sakura and Naruto, with Tsuwabuki behind them, standing it what appeared to be a puddle of shadow. Naruto was just stepping from it, and in his hand he clutched a single bell, while Sakura clutched the other. Both had identical smirks on their faces, and even Tsuwabuki seemed to be grinning in triumph at her companion's victory.

Kakashi blinked, touching his belt, where the bells no longer rested. He looked at the two teenagers again, stunned for but a moment—before he broke into a warm grin, almost hidden by his mask.

"Hunting, huh?" he said, raising a hand to pull his forehead protector back over his left eye.

Naruto grinned. "I didn't say what kind of hunting, did I?"

Kakashi then laughed out loud, unable to control his amusement, or the absolute pride he had in his students, who had surprised him time and time again.

* * *

"How the hell did you get in here?" 

Tsunade was standing, both hands flat on her desk, her eyes staring with considerable force into Benedictus', who stood at the door to her office, smiling benignly. Tsunade twitched at the man's indifference to her own anger (though somewhere in her mind she acknowledged that she should be more civil to such an important visitor; yet she had not forgotten what had happened yesterday) and scowled as he walked up and took a seat in one of the two chairs before her desk.

"I walked," the old man said, quite reasonably.

"There are guards…"

"…who were perfectly willing to let me in. Now, pardon my rudeness, but as I said, I came here to discuss something with you." He crossed his hands across his lap, and waited.

Tsunade twitched again. The man's arrogance was disgusting, yet he knew that Naruto would not have brought him here without reason. As much as she was beginning to dislike this man, she decided that it would indeed be in her best interests to hear what he had to say. Besides, any chance for her to skive work was a chance worth taking.

"Fine, I'm listening."

* * *

Tenzo lifted a small letter, left at his door and around eight that morning. He had opened it long ago, and its contents were displayed across a smooth wooden table in the middle of his room. His large, chocolate eyes scanned its contents for the twentieth time that hour. It was a simple description of his newest mission, which would begin in a week. He nodded, whispering to himself the entire time. 

"Yamato," he said. "Yamato. Yamato. Yamato.

"My name is Yamato."

* * *

"It's time to begin." 

"Already? Damn, we just barely finished preparing, don't you wanna hold off a bit?"

"No. We must begin now, if we are to achieve our goals."

"Where do we start?"

"You each have your duties—complete them to the fullest, and we will finally have what we set out to claim. Nobody must fail."

* * *

Good chapter, I hope? Sorry it took me a while, but I wanted it as perfect as can be. I hope its not too confusing to follow. 

For all those who don't know—Tenzo is not an OC. As you find out at the end—he is Yamato. His house probably doesn't look like that, but I wanted it befitting of its his secretive character. You'll find out later why he was given the codename Yamato right now, when Naruto knows his real name. (It's a stupid reason, but it's the best I could come up with, okay?)

Look forward to more battles in the future, and Naruto meeting his friends again. Then, of course, the beginning of the first true arc of this new story—though it won't be like any other arcs!

See you next week. The chapter may be late again, as I'm heading home next week. But I'll do my best to get it out by Sunday or Monday, if that's possible.

Seeya.

General Grievous

* * *

I'm a bananaphone. That is all. 

-Noz

* * *

Replacing Spellbook is: 

_**Scroll of Seals:**_

**Suiton: Suijinheki (Water Encampment Wall): **Surrounds person with wall of water.


	3. Home is Where the Heart is

**Disclaimer: I d0//'t 0wnz0rz //arut0 0r w0rld 0f wArcraft LOLZ ROFLCOPTER!**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

"An alliance, huh?"

Benedictus was pleased to hear that the woman's tone was inquisitive; she was not completely against it. But he could also detect reservation in her tone—she was not completely convinced, either. He had just finished explaining the details of the alliance, and how it had come into fruition entirely because of Naruto's actions; because of the many battles he had fought, and the many people he had touched. She did not look or sound surprised when he told her all of that. She was well enough aware of the boy's abilities to make friends with any sort of person (little did he know that she was one of these people). Yet, she did not sound entirely convinced that there was a benefit in allying with those from an entire other world—one which had no business in their affairs.

Of course, he had to convince her otherwise. It was looking to be quite the task; which was in stark contrast to the impression Naruto had given him when they had first discussed the matter. '_Baa-chan will do it, I know she will,' _he had said, leaving no room for argument. Benedictus had believed him, merely because he had been in no position to contest. Now he was, and had the boy been there, he would have contested quite a bit. Had he been fond of proverbs, he would have believed this task to be likened to making a mountain crumble with a gust of wind.

But, while wind could not immediately break a mountain—it could gradually wear it away, and that's what he hoped to do.

"Yes," he said, leaning forwards and smiling at the middle-aged woman under the guise of youth. "An alliance between two different worlds entirely—an alliance which will no doubt benefit both of us greatly."

"Is that so?" Tsunade said, her honey-brown eyes affixing themselves to his shining gold ones. He was disheartened for a moment; the woman's eyes were like gemstones, durable and pretty, yet allowing one to see almost straight through. She was making her skepticism no secret to him. "So you keep saying, yet I still fail to see how."

"We have the powers of eight countries allied to us at the moment, including our own," he said, leaning back slightly, and gripping the arms of his chair. "That is a phenomenal feat, by any standards, and each country possesses its own resources, its own armies, and its own trade system. Each can be governed independently, and each is essentially self-sustaining; yet if a link was forged, we could create something far greater than eight separate countries. As it stands, there is an enormous potential that we must seize and cultivate."

"Precisely," said Tsunade. "So what does that have to do with this village?"

"Simple. It is due to the connection that each of these eight countries has to this village, through one simple factor—Naruto. Because of this factor, which essentially formed the basis for our alliance, I believe we can forge an inter-dimensional alliance, the first of its kind. How would this benefit you, you ask? Quite simply really—I am told you have enemies."

Tsunade narrowed her eyes a bit. No doubt Naruto had told him a few things about their past troubles, then.

"Yes," she said.

"I am well aware that as a village, you are one of the most powerful and have already many alliances in your own world. But I am told that your enemies are quite strong, and even more elusive. While I'm certain you could handle it on your own, would it not be simpler to accept the power of eight other countries in order to aid you? There are many things already that we have to offer you—technologies yet to be discovered, arts of battle that have yet to be tapped, resources that have not been discovered or do not exist here, warriors ready and willing to aid at any point—what is there to lose?"

"Quite a bit," said Tsunade, her voice harsh and stark as a winter-kissed tree. "True, there are many enemies that pose a threat to the Leaf—and also true, we have many alliances here already. But what you don't seem to realize is the impracticality of such an alliance, as well as the long-term effects. Up until this point, I wasn't aware that there were other humanoids, or even other worlds out there. Introducing such a shock to our world is a bit much, wouldn't you say? It would, and I have no doubt about this, cause problems in the future. Not everybody is tolerant, you must realize. Also, opening trade between two worlds seems pointless and far too much trouble for what its worth. Not only that, but this poses another problem—if we were to ally with you, that would require us to aid you in battle, would it not?"

Benedictus nodded slowly.

"You're asking me to send shinobi—loyal, hard-working shinobi, with families here who have lived their entire lives in this village, dealing in their own ways with its own wars and matters—to a world that none of them have heard of, and thus know nothing about; who have no idea of the prejudices of that world, the meanings behind the wars and battles, the terrain, the people—essentially everything. You're asking me to send them there­­––for I assume that you're making this proposition because you're in need of as much help as you can get––to die for causes, for people and for things that will never have an impact on them or their lives here? Don't you think that's selfish? The people of this village have dealt with many things in the past few years, and we already live in a harsh and unforgiving world. There is hardly a time when we aren't at war with some village or another, and more and more of the shinobi of this village lose their lives because of it. They do it happily, because they want to protect this village with their lives—but asking them to fight for something that really doesn't have anything to do with this village—how the hell do you think that's fair?"

"We would reciprocate the actions, as I said…" Benedictus started, but was suddenly cut off, as Tsunade stood.

"I could care less. As you have also said, we have plenty of alliances––powerful alliances—that have and could continue to help us against our own enemies. As for trade, we don't particularly need a better economy, as it is—the shinobi village system functions on a mission-based system—it exists to take the requests of others and make them happen, whether it be as simple walking the family dog or assassinating a high-class aristocrat in some city somewhere. We function fine like that, and adding any more to it seems pointless and silly—like giving more sake to an already drunk person."

Benedictus nodded calmly, speaking no words. Tsunade continued on, hardly noticing the gesture.

"What you're asking is for us to involve yourself in your politics—for your reasons alone. You're asking us to fight in your wars—and even bring upon us the wrath of your enemies. That hardly seems fair, now does it?"

Benedictus sighed, and nodded. He had considered all of this, but had been hinging on the knowledge that Naruto had absolute faith in this woman. He waited for her to continue her denouncements, but she did not. Instead, she sat down again, rested her chin upon her laced hands and looked at him squarely. Something had changed in her eyes—as if the dead tree before had once again began to blossom and with it, so did his hopes.

"But Naruto seems to think differently of all this," she said, slowly.

Benedictus waited.

"Perhaps it's because he went there, and fought in your battles and helped create this alliance of yours, but he seems to think that an alliance is completely worthwhile. I doubt, highly, that he put any consideration into everything I just said. He rarely does such things, and that's something he needs to work on in the future, if he wants to take my position." She shook her head, smiling ruefully, as if remembering a joke told long ago. "He's an idiot when it comes to things like politics, but that's not his style, now is it? He doesn't do things as I do, or even any of the past Hokages. His talents have always shown themselves in his ability to make loyal friends of nearly everyone he meets. That's why I'm not completely chucking this whole idea out the window, old man. He clearly made friends and allies in all of you guys, and knows instinctively the benefits that would come with this alliance. Naruto's not a complete moron; he might have known that I'd be this reserved to it, at first." This made Benedictus stifle a snort, wondering if she truly knew the boy as well as she thought she did.

"But in the end," she continued. "He still supports it, and believes I should as well. I see both the benefits and the costs, and at the moment, I cannot decide which outweighs the other. Aside from this, it isn't my decision alone to make—the Konoha Council of Elders has to hear this proposition as well, and I guarantee that they will have the same reservations as I did—hell, they'd hardly consider it, if I weren't here."

"I see," said Benedictus, nodding, the weathered smile on his face once more, with his eyes shining brightly again. He smoothed out the folds in his robes and leaned forwards again. "So I have you intrigued?"

"A mite," she said. She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. "Though I'm surprised you haven't caught on to the second option—one I'm sure would be in your best interests to make."

"Oh?" said Benedictus, blinking a few times. "A second option you say?" He sat and frowned for a moment, thinking hard on her words, past and present. Then the solution struck him, in the midst of this revision. A smile, quite conspiratorial, appeared on his face, and he leaned in, lifting a hand to stroke his beard.

"That option, then?"

"Yes," said Tsunade, giving him a nod and an almost serpentine smirk. "But it'll cost you, I'll have you know."

"Oh indeed…" said Benedictus. "But as you said—this would indeed be in our best interests. Has it been done before?"

"No, but that doesn't mean it can't be done."

"You're quite the agreeable woman, Lady Tsunade."

"So I'm not a snake in human form?"

"What are you talking about?"

* * *

"Team Seven is officially reformed," said Kakashi.

A week had passed since Kakashi's test of their abilities, and the three remaining members of Team Seven now sat upon the stools at Ichiraku's. Naruto was inhaling his ramen with the force of a black hole, as if to make up for the years of it he had missed. Kakashi sat in front of a completely empty bowl, having somehow eaten his food in the span of three seconds, without Naruto or Sakura catching sight of his masked face. Sakura was making her way slowly through her own ramen, as a normal person might.

"Almost," Naruto said, without looking up from his ramen.

Kakashi paused, rethought his words, and then nodded in agreement. "You're right, almost," he amended. "I just heard it from Tsunade-sama this morning."

"When do we begin missions again?" said Sakura, who had heard nothing from her master regarding their team (not that she'd had much chance—Tsunade-sama seemed extra busy, and Shizune had taken to overseeing her training sessions for the past week).

"Soon, I would imagine," said Kakashi, his voice carrying the slight weight of mystery. Both Naruto and Sakura noticed it, and turned to look at him oddly. He wasn't looking at them, however.

"Naruto," Sakura suddenly said, glancing at her teammate. "Have you seen that old man of yours, Benedictus, yet? I haven't heard anything about him since he arrived."

Naruto nodded. "I've seen him a few times. He met with Baa-chan last week, and since then he's been wandering around doing whatever the hell he feels like. I don't see him much, but he says he has some good news that he needs to tell Kira-chan, so he'll be going back soon."

"He hasn't told you the news?"

"Nope," Naruto said, with a frown of irritation. "He hasn't told me Baa-chan's answer yet. It's annoying!"

"Answer to what?" Sakura asked, giving Naruto a pointed glare. "You've been saying that he's been here for a reason, yet you haven't told us _that_ reason." She crossed her arms for added effect, something that made Kakashi inwardly chuckle. The look that Sakura was now giving Naruto was enough to make most men break (given that they new of her strength), but it would be twice as effective on Naruto, who cared quite a bit for Sakura, and also had first hand experience to what could happen if he said the wrong thing. A moment later, predictably, Naruto spilt it all.

"That makes sense, now that I think about it," muttered Sakura, bothered by her shortsightedness. "Do you think Tsunade-sama accepted? That could be the good news, couldn't it?"

Naruto nodded, crossing his arms. "It could be, but that doesn't explain why neither of them will tell me. I'm a part of it too, you know!"

Sakura nodded. She had not heard much of her master in the past week. The woman was never in her office, and whenever they did meet, Tsunade was always rushing from one place to another like a frantic rat trapped in a maze. It could be that she was busy trying to get this alliance that Benedictus had proposed to be accepted by the Council of Konoha. That would make sense—though the Hokage was the ruler of the village, and had command over its shinobi and much of its political and economical dealings, the Council of Konoha played a role as well. Whenever a decision had to be made that was great enough to affect the entire village, the Council was always involved in some way or another. They were often at odds with Tsunade, from what Sakura had experienced. Whenever a member of the Council came to speak with Tsunade, it would usually end up in a heated argument, which would end with the Council member hobbling off or Tsunade hitting something to make them leave. Tsunade could not stand the Council, whom she regarded as a group of elitist old fools whose brains had rotted away along with their bodies. Indeed, the Council held entirely outdated and traditionalist views that many disagreed with nowadays. They still held the belief that the Hidden Stone was their enemy, when indeed they had not been at war with that village for many years, and had made piece since. They still believed that the Fire _daimyo_ principally held the power in the Fire Country, when in fact many now regarded that the position of _daimyo_ as outdated. It was a figurehead position that in the past had controlled the economy and status of the entire country, while the shinobi village within dealt entirely with its own affairs and only aided the _daimyo_ when the capital city was threatened. In recent times, however, the Fire Country was governed principally by the Hidden Leaf, and hence the Hokage. The current _daimyo_ seemed to accept this, and spent much of his time traveling the countryside or holding festivals around his castle; he left the affairs of the country entirely to Tsunade, something that didn't bother her or anybody else. Nor did the Council see anything wrong with marriages below the age of sixteen, which was the current age limit for both sexes. They believed it practical, as the life of a shinobi was a dangerous and unpredictable one, but more so that the age had been younger for almost the entirety of the Hidden Leaf's history. Lately many held the belief that anything below sixteen was far too young, even when it concerned clan politics (Hyuuga Hiashi was among these, surprisingly, and didn't intend to marry off either of his daughters until they were of the appropriate age). They saw anything that differed from the traditions of the Leaf, no matter how barbaric, as wrong.

Or, in Tsunade's belief, they feared change.

If this alliance was being put to the Council, then it was no wonder Tsunade was working so hard. She would need to do everything possible in order to get the Council to accept it, for such a change was immense and unheard of. An alliance with another world? It sounded preposterous, singularly because Sakura hadn't been aware of another world for the entirety of her life until Naruto had been dragged there. She had been prepared for it—but nobody else, aside from Naruto's friends and allies, knew that this was so. Once everyone found out, it would spread throughout the world. Sakura herself would find no matter in it, for she knew of that world's existence already. But the situation would not be without its problems; that much she knew. In fact, in her eyes, it would pose a great many problems in the future.

It would be quite the change.

Naruto suddenly hopped off his stool, pulling Sakura from her many thoughts. He had finished his ramen.

"Well, I'm off to see Iruka-sensei. He told me to come by the Academy today. See you!"

"Bye, Naruto," Kakashi said, with a lazy wave.

"See you later," Sakura called after him.

"I'd best leave as well. I have a prior engagement," said Kakashi, suddenly vanishing in a whirl of white smoke. Sakura was then alone, with the sudden realization that neither Naruto nor Kakashi had paid.

"I'll put it on their tabs," said Ayame, with a wink and a smile to the pink-haired girl. "So much for chivalry, huh?"

"Yes," said Sakura, rubbing her temples in exasperation. "So much."

* * *

The past week for Naruto had been memorable.

The Monday following his return, after the bell test with Kakashi, Naruto had spent the majority of it at Ichiraku's, gorging himself on ramen and talking with Ayame, Teuchi and Sakura. Kakashi had vanished, saying that he had things to do (being as vague as always), but not before giving Naruto some money to pay for their food, calling it a reward for their good work. So Naruto didn't plan to leave until all of that money was gone, and he was sufficiently satiated. There was still a lot to talk about, too, with Teuchi and Ayame, who had hired two part-time workers that only filled in when Ayame or Teuchi was away. His talks with Sakura's generally consisted of her work with Tsunade, which while Naruto didn't understand too well was interested in nonetheless. After seeing Kira on multiple occasions use medical _jutsu_ to better the lives of others, Naruto had become fascinated by it.

They had spent so long there that it was no surprise when Iruka suddenly showed up, deciding to pop in for a quick bite to eat after his classes.

"My gosh! is that really you, Naruto?" he had cried, upon sighting the blonde and all his changes. The two had immediately fallen back into their previous relationship, when he and Naruto had gone out almost every day for ramen at some point. Sakura had smiled and watched as Iruka and Naruto talked—Naruto blabbering on about some experience or another in the other world of Azeroth, vastly exaggerating in the most obvious way on some points, while Iruka watched and laughed and occasionally chastised. Sakura thought it more like a relationship between siblings than friends—Iruka the concerned elder, Naruto the impetuous younger. But it was a relationship that Naruto nonetheless deserved—having gone through his life without a family or guidance; Iruka was a perfect match for him. To see them in such a state was heartwarming, and Sakura had noticed that Iruka was looking happier than he had in months. The man had missed Naruto as much as Naruto had missed him.

It was not long before Iruka moved on, telling Naruto to keep in touch and visit him sometime at the Academy. By the time they had finished talking, it had been late, and so Naruto had eaten another bowl and then parted ways with Sakura, returning to his apartment.

There he had met his landlady and her husband once again, and had been forced into having tea with the two of them. Their quirks—the husband, Kentai and his amazing laziness and perverted sense of humor; and the wife—Maga, with her severe countenance and strong will, had immediately tried to resituate themselves in Naruto's life. They had never done so much before, but Naruto found it a pleasant experience and promised that he would talk with them more often. He did remember their kindnesses in the past.

The next day had begun well; Naruto had planned to seek out and surprise some of his old friends, other members of the Rookie Nine—a task that had turned out to be quite difficult. Indeed, he had spent the majority of the morning trying to find any trace of them; he went to all of the barbecue restaurants he knew of to seek out Chouji; he visited the Nara residence, where Shikamaru's kind mother had told him that Shikamaru was not there at the moment; he had gone near the Inuzuka's residence only to be driven away by a pack of guard dogs who didn't seem to like his scent; he had visited some of the training grounds in search of Lee or Gai, but found no trace; he had visited a weapons shop in search of Tenten, despite not knowing her very well; he had dared attempting to approach the Aburame residence, but quickly retreated when he was greeted by a hulking man dressed in so much clothing that he could only see parts of skin around his eyes; and he had even gone so far as to check the Hyuuga Clan residence––he had been forced out immediately for his "uncouth appearance", and had been ordered not to return. So grumbling, he had returned to Ichiraku's to rest and recharge; and there he was pleasantly surprised to find two of the friends he sought.

"Shikamaru! Chouji!" he had called.

Shikamaru hadn't changed much, to Naruto's eyes—he still had the lazy frown, the slouching posture, and the same pineapple-shaped hairdo that signified him as Shikamaru. But he had grown taller, now wore the more official-looking outfit of a typical _chuunin_, and gave Naruto the impression that he had gotten stronger.

Chouji, on the other hand, had changed quite a bit. Aside from the bright smile and kind eyes of before, he now stood several inches higher than Naruto and had grown even bigger in the other direction. But aside from the beanbag impression he had given Naruto before, the boy now seemed as solid and strong as a small mountain. He wore deep red armor and had hair that flowed down past his shoulders.

"What the hell…Naruto? This was the surprise Ino was talking about?" Shikamaru had said, in that bored drawling voice.

"Whoa! It is you, Naruto! It's been forever, hasn't it?" Chouji had said; his voice had change a little as well, becoming deeper and more resounding.

"Geez, you guys have definitely changed!" Naruto had said, looking over the two in great surprise and detail. "I almost didn't recognize you Chouji, in that armor! And Shikamaru's starting to look like a hard worker…" he sniggered.

"It's something my dad made," grinned Chouji.

"Shut up," said Shikamaru, sighing irritably, as if insulted.

Naruto took a seat, and at once they began to converse. Naruto teased Shikamaru for his position as Academy teacher and how he was probably going to single-handedly annihilate the future shinobi of Konoha by telling them how boring and lame it is to be a shinobi, and that it's much better to watch clouds and complain. Shikamaru had rolled his eyes, muttered something rude under his breath, while Chouji had laughed himself hoarse ("It's funny because its true," he later said). Naruto, of course, nearly made the mistake of calling Chouji even fatter than before, but caught himself in the last moment—having been away from Konoha for so long, yet having his friends nearly always on his mind, had taught him to be more careful with their respective sensitivities. But he also learned something rather annoying and depressing.

"They're not here?" Naruto had muttered, slumping in his seat. "Where the hell are they?"

"On missions, moron," said Shikamaru, after a yawn. "Hinata, Shino and Kiba's group are on a mission with Kurenai-sensei, somewhere in the _Water _Country, while Lee, Neji and Tenten's group are somewhere near the _Swamp _Country. They probably won't be back for a couple of days, at the earliest, as those lands are pretty far away. Neji's group will probably return a little earlier, as they started their mission two weeks ago."

Naruto sighed, annoyed that he wouldn't get to see his other friends for another few weeks. He had been _so_ looking forwards to seeing (and perhaps fighting) Kiba and Neji, especially now that the latter was _jounin_. But, realizing that nothing would change that fact, he accepted it; what were a few more days, anyways?

After eating a few helpings of ramen, the group of three left the restaurant and took a long walk. Shikamaru and Chouji (though Shikamaru attempted to hide it) listened in rapt awe to Naruto's descriptions of the places he had been, and the things he had seen. Chouji sounded particularly interested in the various foods Naruto had tasted in Azeroth, while Shikamaru asked a few questions about the similarities between several of the cities Naruto had been to that shared beliefs, social structures, and even economics in the Leaf and other villages in their world. Naruto didn't take much interest such things, so Shikamaru got few answers; he did however, find interest in many of the things Naruto said nonetheless. The lands Naruto had visited sounded so vast and so different that what imagination Shikamaru had went wild, and some part of him suddenly wanted to see these places, in all the glory Naruto spoke of.

In turn, Naruto learned a lot about their training and schedules since he had left. He learned that both Ino and Chouji had become _chuunin_ at the previous Exam, several months prior to Naruto's return—the very same that Sakura had been promoted at. Since then, he learned that Shikamaru had been busy with teaching, and Chouji with training. Ino had begun practicing medical _jutsu_, even going so far as to learn a few things from Sakura.

That day ended with their parting, and Chouji's suggestion that he should join them in training one day. Naruto readily accepted, not wanting to miss a chance to show off the cool techniques he had learned in Azeroth. Shikamaru had simply said that he'd have to play a game of shogi with him one day, before both had left and Naruto had returned to his apartment, and to sleep.

The rest of the week passed quickly. Naruto spent his time with Sakura and Kakashi, sometimes training in teamwork with both of them (for now Kakashi doubled as both teacher and comrade), sometimes just enjoying their company. It was almost like old times—Sakura berating Naruto for some stupid comment or lewd remark and shaking her fist at Kakashi for reading _Icha Icha Paradise_ in their presence, but also laughing at Naruto's jokes and learning about his travels (and growing more and more interested, in that female sense of the word, by this girl he had met—Kira, though she did not know why), and simply being there with him; Naruto would train hard, eat lots of ramen, and occasionally irritate Sakura with his words or actions, without meaning to; Kakashi would smile at both of them, be as cryptic as he could about his own affairs, and seemed to read the same volume of _Icha Icha Paradise_ that he always had. In the end, Naruto couldn't have asked for a better week—it seemed almost too perfect, for he had never enjoyed himself as much as he had in a long time.

In that time, too, he met with Benedictus, finding out that he and Tsunade had reached a conclusion, yet refused to tell him a word of it.

"It's a surprise, my boy, one that you will find out soon enough, I daresay. Do not worry; it's something quite good. So good, in fact, that I must return with haste to Stormwind to bring this news to Kira. Perhaps you and your friends might accompany me, when the time comes?"

Naruto's frown broke at the news. "Definitely! They will probably want to see everything, now that I've told them about it." It then repaired itself. "But why the hell can't you tell me!"

"Because that would be like telling you what's in your Winter Veil present, now wouldn't it?"

"What the hell is Winter Veil?"

While it irritated him that Benedictus would not tell him the full news, he had settled simply to wait. As it was good news, he knew that Tsunade had accepted on some level, and so that gave him comfort.

But in hearing this, he began to wonder, with each passing day, what was happening back in Stormwind. He began to wonder what Kira was doing at points, or where Kylia was, or were the rest of his friends were and the actions they were taking to build support for the alliance.

He also wondered about the problems they faced, for he knew that there would be many.

* * *

"Is it more bad news, Captain?"

Kira stood at the edge of a young man's bed, with one hand hovering over his forehead. A blue light flowed from it, and the man's features—before twisted into a hedge of pain and delirium—now soothed and peaceful, and fast asleep. The man had been nearly killed by a gnoll outside the city, on his way back from one of the villages tucked away inside Elwynn Forest.

He had been brought to her by a pair of orcs.

Captain Eric Schneider gave her a quick bow, and then followed it by a small nod and a distressed look. Kira sighed, and moved her hand away. The man was as peaceful as needed for him to rest, and so she could do nothing else. She turned away, and walked past Schneider. "We'll find somewhere else to discuss it, Captain."

Captain Eric nodded. Kira rarely called him by that title, preferring instead to call him Sir Eric or simply Eric. Yet, over the past few days, things had been happening that was testing the young girl's nerves at every point; she had become less open and friendly as a result, and had begun acting more like a queen. Eric was not sure if he liked the change—while it was proper for someone of her status to call him by his title and his title only, he had gotten rather used to her friendly greetings.

They were not huge problems, thankfully. A fight had broken out in one of the smaller inns near the perimeter of the city, between a troll and two humans. It had culminated in the troll using one of his tusks to stab one of the humans, nearly killing him, before the rest of the pub (mostly consisting of humans) had leapt upon the troll and beaten him to the point of near death. The Stormwind Guard had rushed in at that point and quelled the fight, which had still been raging between the humans and the other former Horde occupants of the room. Nobody was killed, but when Kira had heard the report she had grown both angry and distressed. It had taken Kylia and Eric himself to calm her down, and convince her that such events occurred all the time between members of the same race, and it didn't matter if it had occurred between a troll and some humans. But Eric knew that she had grown angry more because an illusion of bliss had been shattered, and she now knew that not everything was idyllic and peaceful within her city.

There had been a few other such events—two orcs getting drunk and vandalizing a gnome's house; a tauren getting into a fist fight with a dwarf; some night elves taunting a group of trolls with racial slurs and threats of violence; each event, while small scale, was a blow to Kira's perfectly sculpted dream of the future, and yet she knew she could do nothing about any of them. Though she had indeed been convinced that such things were bound to happen, she had grown harder and more queenly of late, as if the friendliness everyone had become so accustomed to was being bled from her, from many tiny, invisible wounds.

They found an empty room—the very same empty room that Benedictus had occupied a while ago—and Kira sat down with a great sigh. Her shoulders sagged under an immense weight, and when she looked up at Sir Eric, he was surprised (but almost relieved) to find that she had tears in her eyes.

"Milady?" he asked, stepping forwards. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she said, suddenly blushing and wiping away her unshed tears. "Forgive me, Sir Eric, but these past few days have been getting to me…" She looked so alone, sitting there.

"You must be strong, milady," he said, falling to one knee. "But I will do whatever I can to ease whatever burden you are carrying."

She smiled at him, and once again he was relieved. "You could make this bad news you about to tell me good news, if possible."

Sir Eric looked away. "If only I could, milady."

"Then speak it," she said, sitting up straight, and adopting the cultured, passive and regal look of before.

Sir Eric nodded, and removed a scroll tucked away in the back of his belt. He stood, unfurling it, and took a deep breath, that shuddered slightly as he exhaled.

"_Yesterday, the citizens of Tarren Mill and Southshore became aware of plumes of smoke in the distance, high in the mountains. A party was dispatched from each town, and climbed the mountains that the smoke was appearing from. At midday, they reached the entrance to the hidden headquarters of the Ravenholdt Assassin's League, Ravenholdt Manor, and upon entering found it to be utterly destroyed."_

With this, Kira's pretty eyes grew wide. She knew enough about the Ravenholdt assassins to know that they were among the most powerful and skilled of hired mercenaries, and accepted only the most difficult and high-paying jobs. Her father and her grandfather had used their services on many occasions—if you wanted something stolen, killed, or spied upon, it was them that was called, for they always made absolutely sure the job got done.

"_Upon close inspection of the ruined manor, they found nearly every member slain in a most brutal manner. Even the leader of the League, Lord Jorach Ravenholdt, lay dead in the ruins of his manor. There was only one survivor, who lay on the grounds of the manor, unconscious and unable to be roused, but still breathing—an orc called Master Kang, who trained many of the new League members but rarely took jobs himself, according to several honorary members of the League. Though the entire area was searched, no trace was found of the perpetrators. It was at first believed to be members of the Syndicate, who have a long-standing rivalry with Ravenholdt, but their normally occupied headquarters of Durnholde Keep was found to be empty, and had been so for some time. None of the Forsaken could find a smell trail, and thus the pursuit was abandoned, and Master Kang was taken to Tarren Mill. He now rests there, but has yet to wake, and thus no information can be gotten from him."_

Sir Eric finished reading, lowered the scroll, and fell to one knee. He did not meet her eyes.

But Kira, though distressed, felt little pain over the news, and far more did she feel great confusion. It did not make sense. Why was the Syndicate, if indeed it was they who had committed this crime, acting up of late? And what of the Defias Brotherhood? What linked these two organizations, and was causing them to make such frequent raids, and even now making them attack and successfully eliminate a rival faction, one that had existed perhaps as long as they and had never been attacked before? What also was giving them the power to do such a thing? It had always been widely regarded that the Syndicate was inferior in strength and skill to the Ravenholdt Assassin's League, and even if they were to make an attack, they would likely not succeed. And if they had, they would not be able to do it without cost—and she saw no way they could have dragged every one of their comrade's bodies and put them in a place where no Forsaken could smell them, and do it before the two parties had arrived.

"Sir Eric," she said, softly. "What do you think of this?"

Sir Eric lifted his head, to meet her eyes. Filled with regal strength that shined like diamonds, like her father's had once had, Sir Eric felt his heart lift in seeing them.

"I don't know, milady," he said. "There are many things that seem wrong about this entire event, and it makes me wonder what type of enemy has the power to successfully defeat nearly every one of the Ravenholdt members and not suffer any losses themselves. It suggests that they are either so numerous and so skilled that they overwhelmed the Assassin's League, and because of their numbers were able to take what members had perished and flee as quickly as they had come; or that they were very few, and those few possessed such monstrous strength that not even the Lord of the Assassin's League could match their powers."

"What do we do about it?" Kira then asked.

"I cannot say, at this moment, milady. The best recourse would be to wait for Master Kang to awaken, and hear what he has to say. There is nothing more we can do at this moment."

Kira gave a solemn nod. "Thank you, Sir Eric." She gave him a smile then. "I look forwards to the day when all of this bad news is exhausted, and I can finally listen to some good news."

He smiled back at her, though he kept his head low to hide it. He then looked up, drawing forth another scroll from his belt.

"Today's bad news is exhausted, milady, and it just so happens that I have some other news to give you. I cannot say if it is bad or good, so I will let milady decide."

He unfurled it, coughed, and read, in the style of a telegram, printed neatly and mechanically by one of the gnome's machines: "_From High Tinker Mekkatorque (stop), to Lady Kira Wrynn (stop). Lady Kira, (stop), going to be making a trip (stop), across the portal (stop), to greet leader (stop), of village we are closest to (stop). Naruto (stop), asked me to (stop), he knows someone (stop) from village (stop), who is friend (stop). He believes (stop), that agreement (stop) can be made to (stop) build protection (stop) for portal and bring more allies (stop), into New Alliance (stop). More portals (stop) may follow (stop)."_

It was as if he stood at the edge of the horizon; for he saw and felt the warmest smile rise onto Kira's face, like a sun rising to meet the day.

"Thank you, Sir Eric."

* * *

"Rise and shine, Naruto."

"GAH!"

It took Naruto a moment after uttering the short exclamation and falling to the floor, to realize that his heart was still beating, despite the absolute terror that he had just felt. For upon opening his eyes he had seen Kakashi's face, mere inches from his own, while the rest of the _jounin_ crouched upon his bed like some creepy pervert in the process of doing something quite against the law. Naruto had then fallen out of bed from the sudden shock, and was now curled into a ball against the wall, staring at Kakashi with wide and frightened eyes.

"D-don't do that again, asshole!" the blonde cried, clutching his chest and gasping a few times.

"Did I frighten you?" Kakashi asked, smiling behind his mask and giving a small chortle.

"Yes!" the blonde snapped. "I never want to wake up with you're creepy masked face right next to mine! That's weird, Kakashi-sensei!"

Kakashi nodded. "Duly noted. Hurry up and get dressed, we needed to be at the training fields half an hour ago."

"Bastard!" Naruto yelled, leaping to his feet and rushing to pull on the clothes that he had left in a heap upon the floor. Kakashi waited patiently, gazing around Naruto's bedroom for a moment, as he had not had a chance to earlier. It was a small room, covered in a layer of fine dust likely from its disuse, with white walls, a small bed in one corner, a small bedside table, and a dresser in another corner. There was a window just above Naruto's bed, where several potted plants lay, perfectly healthy and drinking in the light of the morning sun. No doubt Naruto's landlady had come in to water them several times, or else they wouldn't have survived his absence.

He turned back to Naruto, just as the blonde tugged on the black jacket that he had worn since he had returned. It went down to the middle of his thighs, and had long flaring sleeves and a collar that barely reached his chin. It appeared to be made of leather or something similar, but looked of much higher quality than Naruto could afford. Within there were many pockets to keep weapons or supplies.

"That's a nice jacket," Kakashi commented, peering at it closely as Naruto pulled on his toeless boots. "Where'd you get it?"

Naruto grinned at him. "It was a gift from some of my friends. It's made out of dragon hide."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Does that make it special?"

Naruto nodded. "Very. It's a lot more durable than most stuff. It blocks a kunai pretty easily, and it's very fire resistant, too. Besides, doesn't it look awesome?"

"Very," Kakashi agreed, smiling. "Let's get going, shall we?"

Naruto lifted his _kodachi_ and nodded.

The two of them exited Naruto's apartment, with Naruto speeding hurriedly in front of Kakashi, while the _jounin_ walked leisurely along. At many points during their trip Naruto needed to stop and glare at the man until he caught up. Kakashi was unbothered by Naruto's constant attention, and took his time. Thus they were over an hour late by the time they reached a large expanse near the edge of the village, where there were few trees and no sign of civilization. Kakashi had booked the training area for the next few weeks, seeing as how it would be needed for Naruto's extensive training.

Yesterday Tsunade had told Kakashi that Naruto's training with Tenzo would begin the following morning. It would last until Naruto had a sufficient grasp of the Kyuubi's _chakra_, which would allow him to use it functionally during battle. From there, he could simply do it himself. So Kakashi had agreed and contacted Tenzo, telling him that they'd meet him at the training area at exactly seven o' clock on Monday morning. They arrived at quarter past eight, to find Tenzo standing alone, in the middle of the field, looking quite displeased with his _senpai_ and new student's tardiness.

"You're late, Kakashi-senpai; you too Naruto-kun. That's not the way to make a good impression on your new teacher, now is it?" His face had darkened considerably, transforming once more into the strange corpse-like, wide-eyed glaring demon that Naruto had seen before at his house. The blonde backed away, shivering from the glare, while Kakashi just rolled his eye.

"Sorry, Tenzo, but we had…"

"Actually, Kakashi-senpai, it's Yamato now. From now on, please refer to me as Yamato." The glare melted away, replaced by a stern, serious face that suggested the matter of his name was of the utmost importance.

"Yamato?" said Kakashi, frowning. "Why's that?"

"The mission I was given has two parts," said Yamato. "The first part is training Naruto-kun, and the second part begins once the first part is over. I'm afraid I can't tell either of you more details at this moment, so forgive me." He gave a bow to both of them to suggest his apologies.

Naruto shrugged, a little curious about the mission, but not curious enough to further prod the man and risk getting the creepy glare again. Kakashi gave a nod, understanding Yamato's position perfectly. He then turned back to Naruto.

"Before I leave the training to Tenzo here," he said, ignoring Yamato's twitch of annoyance, "you must know that the training you are about to go through might be difficult or easy, depending on how you take it. However, once you have gained a sufficient grasp on it, I might have a way to make it go exponentially faster. I won't tell you now, because at this point in time it wouldn't be of much use, and it'd be far more dangerous to your and Tenzo's health. Learn how to use the Kyuubi's _chakra _to the best of your abilities, and when you've done that, I'll be back to show you something else—a way of training that only you'll be able to use."

Naruto blinked. "That only I can use?"

"Yes," said Kakashi. He turned back to Yamato. "I leave it to you." He spun and walked over to one of the few trees that populated the area, a large oak, and sat beneath it. At once the book came out, and Kakashi was lost in his perverted fantasy world.

Naruto immediately turned to Yamato. "Then let's get going!"

Yamato nodded, taking a final look in Kakashi's direction. '_He certainly knows how to motivate.'_

"Okay Naruto. The first thing you need to do is begin to draw the Kyuubi's _chakra_ from beneath the training seal. Draw as much as you can manage without it hurting you."

Naruto nodded, and wove his hands into a basic seal before his chest. He took a deep breath, and began to draw the insidious red _chakra _from deep within its prison. It came out as easily as a boulder surrounded by hard earth, at first; and Naruto soon began to sweat. The _chakra_ began to flow throughout his body, then, alongside his own _chakra_, but moving faster and more fluidly. He felt his body growing stronger, in the form of a slight heat that began to build up in his stomach and limbs. But continuing to draw it out was like tensing a muscle, and before long he didn't believe he could do it any longer.

That is when Yamato began.

The ANBU sat cross-legged on the ground, and made a seal. Around him, four large wooden posts erupted, shaped like the heads of dogs. Atop the heads of these wooden dogs burned a bright yellow flame, as Yamato thrust out his palm, where a single word in _kanji_ had been written.

And suddenly, it became easier.

The _chakra_, once before like squeezing honey from a hole as big as a needlepoint, which once through became as runny as water, now flowed as easily as from a tap and was as pliable as dough. It was marvelous, and for a moment, Naruto reveled in this feeling until Yamato shouted to him, "Mould it! You need to perform _chakra_ control exercises, or else it won't do anything. Go, now!" His voice sounded tense and urgent, so Naruto did what he was told so immediately. He pooled the _chakra_ into his feet and attempted to jump with it—but he had gathered too much, and instead of pushing off the ground, he stuck fast to it, and fell with a crash.

Yamato shook his head. "I'm only controlling the bare minimum. It might feel likes its easy, but it isn't. You need to focus more, and relearn everything from the basics. And don't use too much of it at once! It's taking all I have to control it right now."

Naruto stood up, panting, and nodded. He would not goof off. He walked towards the tree Kakashi was sitting beneath, and upon reaching it, took a breath and began gathering _chakra_ once again into his feet.

Kakashi did not look up from his book, but had listened to everything. That was exactly the reason he could not show Naruto his trick right now. The strain that it would put both parties under would be immense, and such a strain would be unnecessary if Naruto could control part of the _chakra_ before he learned the trick. When the time came to teach it to him, he could also use it to teach Naruto one necessary skill that he had yet to fully understand, yet seemed to have a grasp of already. And at the moment, there was no pressing need for Naruto to learn things as swiftly as he could. They could afford to be patient, and do things the right way.

Or so he hoped.

For indeed, it would not be long before a pressing need would present itself.

* * *

For hundreds of miles, the desert was perfectly uniform; one could walk its entire length and see nothing of interest or difference. They would see dunes of sand as high as mountains in some places; but these dunes were much the same as the dunes in other places, for they were the same color, and made of the same substance, and only differed slightly in height and slope. Of course, after walking in the desert for many hours, most men wouldn't notice this, and everything would simply blend into an endless sea of sun-baked sand as hot as a skillet, so bright that it was almost blinding and so disgustingly bland that what difference they saw next they would welcome with open arms, even if it was but a cactus or the carcass of some long dead animal.

But today, two very different things could be seen, walking this endless sea of fire, towards a massive pair of cliffs bleached bone white by the sun. They were in complete contrast to the bright sand around them, for they wore cloaks made of blood moon night, which sucked in this sunny light, seeming to darken the places they walked. They shuffled along through the desert, walking at an almost languid pace across it, as if they did not feel the heat beneath their heavy cloaks and large wicker hats.

The first of these figures stood tall and walked quickly and lightly, like a spectre. It seemed to dance with each step, as if it could hardly contain some excitement. The high collar of its cloak obscured its face, leaving visible only one eye that was clear blue. A slight tune was hummed from beneath the large hat, deep and manly yet containing the qualities of cheer found only in young schoolgirls.

The second of the figure was squat and grotesquely fat. It shuffled along like an old beggar, yet the first impression one got from seeing him was that of a fat old toad. The high collar of its cloak shrouded its face, like that of its companion's, as well as the large, low-hanging hat it wore; it was completely silent.

"We're almost there, Sasori-danna…yeah," the first figure said.

"Yes. Do be quick about it, Deidara. I don't want this taking any longer than it has to. This place disgusts me," the second responded.

"Don't worry; I do, after all, have to make a name for myself. I'll show them the beauty of my fleeting art, and as a tribute to you, Sasori-danna, make sure they don't forget it for a long _time…_"

* * *

Done, again. Shorter chapter, but it had everything I needed in it.

I hope its okay. But know that even though I'm starting the Akatsuki arc in the same fashion as the manga, it will be different, and the main story will diverge from this point considerably. It's happening a bit earlier because Naruto returned a bit earlier…it's a stupid reason, but why not? Akatsuki is a bit different in this story, anyways, not in its members, but in its organization—something you'll find out later.

Hope it's enjoyable. The next chapter is obvious for those who have read the manga. Next up—Gaara versus Deidara!

Seeya next week!

General Grievous


	4. Deidara the Artist

**Disclaimer: A Merry Christmas to All, and to all I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft.**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

A rush of hot air blew by Gaara's face. He stared out at the afternoon sky with his dull green eyes, bordered by vast black rings of sleeplessness, and thought. To those who knew him, it was not uncommon to find him in such a state. Ever since he had become Kazekage, nearly four months prior, after more than a year of blood and toil, he would often go out onto his balcony to think; and indeed, it was there on his balcony that he received many of his visitors. He did not get many visitors, however. Due to his reputation, no doubt, which though he had done quite a bit to rid himself of, still lingered like a rotten smell or a bloody stain. He knew that it would never fully fade, no matter what he did. But that didn't matter to him at the moment. In fact, it had become increasingly unimportant to him, as he settled into his role as Kazekage. He felt that so far he was doing an adequate job. He had already solved several economic problems: he had repealed a protective tariff that his father, the Fourth, had placed on goods specifically being imported from the local nomads (whom his father had apparently disputed with on many occasions); he had increased safety measures for merchants crossing the desert by mapping out more desirable routes, but had also increased the number of sentries along that route, to prevent enemies from taking advantage of it; and he was taking measures to slowly weed out the corruption of the _bazaars_ in the poorer sections of the city, whereas his father had let them fester like gangrenous wounds. 

His actions so far had been applauded by all sides; the people found a wider variety of goods, at cheaper prices, and that were restocked faster; the Council of Sunagakure found his methods fair and practical, for he made most decisions using an objective mind unhindered by emotions; and his closest friends and family were continually dazzled by how much he had changed.

Just four months ago, right after the _Chuunin Exams_, the Council had approached Gaara. They had offered him the position of Kazekage, albeit reluctantly, for after reviewing his actions in the past year, they could no longer say that someone was better. After the ceremony, Gaara had gone straight to work—not just to better the lives of his citizens, but also to help obliterate any and all myths about him.

He wanted to show them who he truly was. He wanted to show them that he deserved to be Kazekage, and that he would not fail in his duty to protect them. That was why he had sought the duty—because he felt he needed it. He needed to atone for what he had done, for the years of fear he had inflicted onto those he now considered as his loved ones, his precious people.

Baki-sensei had told him that so far, he was doing an admirable job.

Though Gaara accepted this praise, he would often wonder what Uzumaki Naruto thought.

For it was Naruto who had shown him this path; it was Naruto who had made him realize, by defeating him in battle, that there were far better things that killing and bloodlust in this world—things that he had never noticed, and yet had been always by his side. No—they were people, not things: his brother and sister, Temari and Kankuro. They were precious people, those who meant more to him than any other.

It stood to reason that he, of all people, should be able to see whether he was doing well or not. He would often wonder if he was truly gaining the respect and admiration of the people he desired it from or not. It could all be a façade, like that of Yashamaru, his murderous uncle. He did not want to think like that, however. It was a disturbing thought, one from his darker days. No, he would trust them. Naruto had shown him that people could be trusted. And he would trust them back; because that was what friends did.

He looked down on the city then. It was a bright and clear day, as hot as ever, but in his opinion it could not have been more beautiful. The sun reflected off the tanned stone of the thousands of buildings he could see below him, and the entire city looked like an oasis. The sight of the city once would have made his blood boil and his eyes narrow.

Now, it soothed his aches and warmed his heart, to see it at peace.

He wondered if that's how Uzumaki Naruto felt when he saw Konoha.

He smiled at a little, watching the city. It did not fade when he heard the light, almost silent footsteps behind him, and felt a familiar presence.

"Baki," he said, his voice still as soft as when he had returned from Konoha. Since then, nobody could ever remember Gaara raising his voice or adopting the ferocious growl he had used just before he'd kill someone.

"Kazekage-sama," the dark-skinned _jounin_ said, bowing to the far younger man. Baki wore a standard issue Sand _jounin_ vest, the color of sand, over a light grey jumpsuit; but to distinguish himself, he wore a _hitai-ate_ with a veil that covered one eye, instead of the standard regulation one, which had no veil.

"How are you today?" Gaara asked, turning to look at the man, who had not risen from his bow.

It was a question that never ceased to throw Baki off—he did not ever believe he'd get used to Gaara asking him how he was. He had learned eventually to accept a simple greeting, though that had taken the better part of six months. Gaara had been asking him how he was around that same time, and ever since he had always been caught off guard by the question. For the first few months he had stuttered meaningless drivel, but now he stayed silent and thought out his response as carefully as one might formulate a plan of attack. Somewhere in his mind he realized that no matter how he responded Gaara wouldn't mind, but it had become natural for him to be wary of Gaara. He was not the only one, of course. Yura, another of Gaara's advisors, who next to Baki spent the most time with Gaara, was as frequently baffled by Gaara's attempts at small talk as Baki (it was a continuing joke among them). There were only two people (possibly four, if what Kankuro said was true) who had learned to deal with Gaara as one might a normal person. They were his brother and sister, Kankuro and Temari, and possibly two ramen chefs at a stand in the slums of the city whose names Baki did not know. He also remembered vaguely the pink-haired Leaf-nin spending some time with Gaara before he had become Kazekage, at the _Chuunin Exams_.

Finding no holes in his response, Baki replied as easily as possible, "I am well, Kazekage-sama. It is a beautiful day, isn't it?"

"It is," Gaara agreed, turning briefly away from Baki, and back to the horizon. Baki noticed the slight curvature of Gaara's lips, and felt himself beginning to smile as well. Temari had been right: though Gaara's smile was nothing like the searing grin of Uzumaki Naruto's, the boy responsible for Gaara's reformation, it was amazing in its own right; and one could not help but smile at it, especially if they had known Gaara beforehand.

"You have news?" Gaara then asked, turning his eyes as swiftly as a raptor sighting movement. Baki instinctively stiffened at the gesture, but melted a little after.

"Yes," he said. "You have visitors."

"Who?"

At this, Baki had to frown. It was not because he did not know, but it was because he was having trouble remembering how to pronounce their leader's name. It had been an odd sight to most of the staff in the Kazekage's Tower to see six men the size of toddlers walk in, covered in dust and smelling of sweat and the desert, and ask to speak with the leader of the village, as well as a boy named Sabaku no Gaara.

They had been quite surprised, obviously, to find out that they were one in the same.

"It is a group coming from the desert," Baki said. "A little man who calls himself Mekk…Mekcha…Mekkatorque leads them; he claims he is on a peacekeeping mission from Uzumaki Naruto, who has apparently returned to this world."

Gaara did not react to the news, at first glance. But Baki had known his new face long enough to notice the slight widening of the eyes, the almost parting of the mouth, and the slight upward twitching of the lips. Gaara was indeed surprised, in a good way.

"What kind of peacekeeping mission?"

"He says that he wishes to discuss that with you."

Gaara gave a soft nod. "Send them to my office, Baki. And inform Yura-san of the situation as well." He then swept past Baki before the man could blink, his blue and white robes billowing behind him.

"Of course, Kazekage-sama," he said, beginning to call his hands together and perform _Shunshin no jutsu _to return to the bottom floor as swiftly as possible.

"Call me Gaara, Baki. You were my teacher, it is only proper."

Baki faltered in the midst of his _jutsu_, looking back into the room, where Gaara was now seated as his desk. The young man had not looked at him, and was busy with some paperwork on the desk.

Baki stared at Gaara a moment, and then smiled, and even let out a small chuckle before he finished the _jutsu_ and vanished in a whirl of sand.

"Of course, Gaara-sama."

* * *

"You're late." 

Yura, _jounin _of the Sand, walked dazedly by the freshly slaughtered bodies of fifteen of his fellow _jounin, _towards the two black cloaked figures that stood before the entrance to the Sand. On both sides of him towered walls of sun-yellow stone, artificially sculpted by some of the most powerful shinobi of the past, to protect the city that lay behind them from even the greatest of attacks. Of course it didn't truly matter if they were there or not, if their enemy could attack from the inside.

Yura was a rather tall man, with a slim face bearing a small goatee and small black eyes. He wore a tan _jounin _vest, with a grey jumpsuit, and a standard issue Sand _hitai-ate_, from which a tuft of black hair shot at an angle across his right eye. He was dusty and covered in blood and gore, much of which was not his own. He let drop a kunai as he walked, drenched in blood and bearing bits of sliced bone and muscle.

Yura did not think he would be in such a situation, not before today.

He usually spent his days advising the new Kazekage—who in his personal opinion was doing quite a good job. Though originally, like many of the others, he had been skeptical of Gaara's ability—after all, he was the youngest Kage ever to have existed—he now regarded Gaara as something necessary for the village. The Yondaime Kazekage, Gaara's father, hadn't been the shining example of leadership.

Yura had been a member of the Kazekage's advising council for nearly four years, and he could honestly say that Gaara was doing far better than his father had—and he had only been in power for a few short months. He listened to advice. He used his advisors in every way possible—he trusted them with the affairs of the city to the highest degree; something that the Yondaime had not.

Perhaps, then, the Yondaime had been wiser than his son.

Yura had never intended for this to happen, to be sure. He had not even remembered such things until nearly half an hour ago, when his mind had been struck with a shocking pain. It had lasted for but a second, and after that second of thoughtless agony he had _remembered_.

It was a curious feeling, to suddenly realize that after supporting the Sand for many years, he would be the one to end up betraying it.

Curious indeed.

Earlier that afternoon, he had even met with the Kazekage briefly, to discuss a matter of security in the lower slums. Many merchants visiting the city were mugged or killed there, and rarely was there a shinobi around to do something about it. But Gaara had not begun their discussion the moment he had arrived. No, he had first asked how Yura's day and been. Yura's day, up until that point, had been fine. He had told Gaara so, and watched as the boy gave a small nod, and a little smile. Yura had smiled when Gaara had, for some odd reason, which he could no longer fathom. This was an almost daily ritual for them, he remembered. Ever since Gaara had been made Kazekage, and had begun spending more time with Yura, he had asked the _jounin_ how his day had been. He never knew quite how to answer (a trait he shared with Baki). But he liked Gaara, so he answered to the best of his ability, even if it sounded strange and forced (though Gaara likely did not notice).

The discussion had gone well, and Gaara had let Yura do most of the talking regarding the plan. At the end, Gaara had agreed with Yura's proposal, though had amended it in a few ways, reducing its cost and possibly increasing its effectiveness, in a way that Yura had not thought of. He had departed feeling very good about himself. He had also departed thinking that Gaara was that much better for the Sand.

Yura did not think of himself as evil.

He knew he was a traitor; but that didn't bother him. He liked Gaara, and thought the young man an incredible benefit to the Sand; but he had no qualms in what he was going to be doing. It was an odd duality, as if somehow his conscience and feelings of righteousness had been blown out like a candle. He had served the Sand faithfully and had loved it and its people—which was odd, considering he was going to meet the men who would have it destroyed.

And even more odd, was that he didn't know quite what _love_ meant anymore.

"Forgive me, Sasori-sama," he said, reaching the second figure—the short, horribly corpulent man dressed in black and red, whose eyes were just visible beneath the hat. They were small and cruel and shrunken, and had a strange glossy sheen to them.

The taller of the two whistled. "I didn't think he'd be so powerful, Sasori-danna. Look how many he killed…yeah!"

The fat one ignored the taller, and said to Yura, "You've done you're duty. The alarm will not be raised, I trust?"

"No," Yura said, swiftly shaking his head and bowing again. "I have removed all chances of it being raised. At this time, Kazekage-sama should be in his office."

"You still call him that?" snorted the wide one. "Even though you've betrayed him?"

"Forgive me," Yura said. "But I still have memories of the past—it is strange, I know that he will die, and I care nothing for it. Yet, I still call him Kazekage-sama. Perhaps it is habit?" He gave a little shrug, and looked away from the man, as if afraid his master would face him with angry eyes.

"Whatever," the corpulent one turned around and looked at the tall one, who was digging around inside his cloak. Yura could see, concealed just beneath the flowing black material, on the man's left side, a small white pouch. The man was digging around inside of it, and a moment later, it came out, clutching a small white lump of matter.

The man held it out in front of him, and Yura watched as it began to sink into his left hand. But that was not quite right. It was not sinking in, so much as being eaten.

For on the man's palm, there was a mouth, about the size of Yura's own; there were no lips, gleaming white teeth, and a writhing pink tongue.

Yura did not show surprise in seeing it. Why should he? One saw a lot of strange things, as a shinobi, and mouths upon someone's palms were not so strange in the grand scheme of things. Besides, he knew that as members of _Akatsuki_, these two were among the strongest shinobi in existence. As they were the best, they were allowed to have strange traits.

The man closed the hand a bit, and Yura heard the gnashing of teeth as the hand-mouth chewed the white substance like gum for a moment. When he next opened his palm, the white substance had returned, but it was now a perfectly sculpted figurine of a bird with folded wings and head out. It was far from life-like, possessing a particularly artificial artistic flair that resembled something drawn in a manga. But it was smooth and looked like it had taken quite a long time to create.

The man tossed it into the air, and formed a seal with his right hand.

The figuring exploded in a cloud of white smoke, which encompassed both black-cloaked men within a blink. But in the wildly unpredictable winds of the desert, it was soon blown away, revealing the taller of the _Akatsuki_ members standing atop a much larger version of the figurine he had just created.

But this time, it moved, turning its head with the swiftness of a bird's, to look at Yura, who flinched back in surprise at the sudden movement.

The taller man had also removed his hat. Underneath was a feminine, smooth-looking face, topped by long blonde hair tied into a topknot in the back, and a long fringe that obscured his left eye. A Hidden Stone _hitai-ate_, marred across the middle, was tied to his head.

"Do you like it, Sand-san? This is my special art project…yeah," the man said, smirking at Yura.

"Just shut up and go, Deidara," said the fat one, in a snarl. "The sight of what you consider art bothers me quite a bit. I don't want to have to look at it longer than need be."

"Sorry, Sasori-danna…yeah," the man, Deidara, said with a cheeky smile. "Then I'll just go and fetch the _Ichibi_, shall I?"

"Do it, quickly."

Deidara gave a salute. "Yes sir!" The model bird that he now stood on suddenly began to flap its wings, and at once took to the air, moving so fluidly that despite its looks, it might have been a real bird. It rose high into the sky, disappearing into some clouds, but moving in the direction of the Kazekage's Tower.

'_I suppose it's unfortunate,'_ Yura thought, as he stood next to his master. '_He is a good person, but he was unfortunate enough to have the demon Shukaku sealed into him. Perhaps he was destined to be their victim. It doesn't matter, anyways. They'll find a new Kazekage.'_ Oddly, Yura felt nothing for his former leader, who was going to die.

Well maybe pity, but it was a fleeting feeling and gone by the time the summoned bird was out of sight.

* * *

The room that Mekkatorque entered was large and circular, flooded with afternoon light from the great window opposite the door. Before this great window was a desk, made of a light wood and long enough to appear imposing. Sitting behind the desk in a large, red chair that only added to his importance was a very young man, perhaps Naruto's age. He had crimson red hair and pale green eyes, with dark bags beneath them to show a serious lack of sleep. But contrary to this, he appeared calm and resolute and affixed Mekkatorque with eyes showing peace. The High Tinker was heartened by this fact. 

"Come in," the young man said, standing to meet the old gnome and walking around his desk in a show of politeness. Mekkatorque did so, closing the door behind and walking briskly on his tiny legs up to Gaara. He at once gave a bow, having learned it custom by Naruto to bow for greeting rather than shaking hands.

"I am High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque, King of the Gnomes."

Gaara gave a bow as well, comparatively as deep. "I am Gaara, Godaime Kazekage of the Hidden Sand." Though the word "gnome" struck him as odd, he did not comment on it.

"And friend of Uzumaki Naruto," said Mekkatorque, looking up and smiling. "I was rather surprised to hear that. I don't believe Naruto knows of your position."

"He has returned?" Gaara asked, gesturing for the gnome to sit at one of the large chairs before his desk. Mekkatorque thanked him and easily lifted himself into the seat, while Gaara took his own seat behind the desk.

"Indeed," the old gnome said, smiling heartily. "I take it then, he has not seen you?"

"No," said Gaara. "He hasn't."

"Understandable. Having returned to his world, which he has been away from for more than a year, must have been on his mind. No doubt he wanted to see his home before his friend, yes?"

Gaara stared at the gnome a moment. "We are not friends."

"Why do you say that?"

"The last time we met," said Gaara, calmly, "we were enemies."

"He seems to think differently since," said Mekkatorque. "It was, after all, he who told me of you. He called you a friend, and spoke very highly of you. Do you not think of him as a friend?"

Gaara didn't answer. It was strange conversation to begin with, and he didn't know if he could put his thoughts into words. No, when he thought about it, he didn't think of Naruto as a friend. He thought of the blonde as something more—closer perhaps—someone to be admired, to look ahead to. Naruto had made such an impact upon his life. They had not met since that time they had fought; the last image of Naruto, etched into Gaara's mind forever, was that face of his, as he crawled towards Gaara. And those eyes of his.

Eyes that Gaara wanted himself to have someday.

Eyes full of life.

Mekkatorque seemed to sense Gaara's predicament, and reacted accordingly. "But, as pleasant as talk of Naruto is, that is not the reason I came. There is something that I must explain, and it might take some time to do so. Do you have much time?"

"I have enough to hear you speak," said Gaara, giving the gnome a tiny smile.

"Excellent."

Mekkatorque's tale was not quite long, but filled to the brim with knowledge that Gaara quite needed to know. He learned of a brief history of this other world that Naruto had spent so much time in, and what its current state of affairs was. He learned of the New Alliance that Naruto had created through much blood and pain. He then learned of the portal, far to the west of the village, well out of way from any trading routes—the portal that had allowed Naruto to return, and that would allow anyone to travel to and fro between the worlds.

"While I am well aware that it is already in a place that most would not access, I would think it better for both of us if there was some sort of settlement protecting it. This would be of no cost to you, of course. I would provide materials and men, I was simply asking your permission, as it is technically within your territory. And should you decide that entering into this alliance is worth your while, it could also become the bridge of trade between the two worlds for your village. Of course, if you decide to decline, then we would not build any such settlement and when not in use, we would close the portal." He peered at Gaara cautiously. The young man had made no movement, and showed no signs of disagreement or agreement. His face was a freshly washed chalk-slate; blank of everything save the features it had come with.

"Am I to understand that Konoha will be entering into this Alliance as well?" Gaara finally asked.

"Quite possible. I know that another representative of our world, as well as Naruto, will no doubt attempt to convince the leader of that village to join. Whether she will or not, I have no idea."

Gaara nodded. "This is not a matter that I can simply choose to accept at this point. You understand that I must speak with my advisors, as well as the Council, before I can authorize such a large-scale operation—that is concerning the Alliance. I find myself agreeing with it and its cause, but I cannot be impulsive in this matter. I must also speak with Konoha about it—they are one of our allies, and hence must be told. But I can give you permission to protect this portal of yours. I would not advise you to begin construction—for; it will take time for me to convince others of the benefits of this deal. In the mean time, I shall send a team to help protect it, and oversee it."

"Of course," said Mekkatorque, nodding his little head. "You are a remarkably accepting leader, Lord Gaara. Not many would support a cause they know little about. Why so easily?"

"If Uzumaki Naruto supports it," said Gaara, looking at the gnome passively. "Then I have no doubt it is a good one. I…trust him."

Mekkatorque nodded softly. "I am glad—but Naruto hardly factors into this situation. There are many things that could happen, that could put your village in danger due to the backlash. You must be willing to–"

"I am," said Gaara, swiftly. "And in the end, I still support it. I know what may happen. But I also know how I might react to those consequences. I will do anything to protect my people, and this village. But, I have learned that trust can do much, and that is why I accept it so easily. I know that Uzumaki Naruto would not accept anything that would endanger this world. I have confidence in him."

Mekkatorque paused, looking at the young Kazekage, and then gave a little chuckle. He hopped from his chair. "He is a remarkable boy, isn't he? He inspires such trust in so many." The old gnome gave a shake of his head. "But I am glad that you are not doing something this impulsive. You have as much time as you like to decide, and as much time to discuss with your allies and advisors. This will affect your entire world, Lord Gaara—you are right to think that it is not an easy decision, regardless of what you yourself think."

Mekkatorque then bowed again to the man. "If I perhaps might have your leave. I will discuss this with my companions and return to the portal as soon as I can. There is much to do, for both of us!"

"There is," Gaara agreed.

"Should you see Naruto before I, give him my regards. Such a good friend, he is, don't you think?"

"I…" Gaara began. He did not know quite why he stopped. But he found, under the old gnome's smile, he could not help but answer:

"Yes," he said, and gave a little smile.

Mekkatorque nodded. "I will have no doubt that I will see you again. Goodbye, Lord Gaara."

Gaara stood. He too bowed, and gave another small smile, which had Mekkatorque beaming at its sight. Gaara then led Mekkatorque to the door and saw him off down the hall. The sight of the gnome cheerily walking away would stay with Gaara for quite a while afterwards. He returned to his desk, briefly wondering what had happened to Yura. Did he know of the situation? He would call the man later, but now he wished to think.

He glanced outside, at the beautiful city, and thought of the people within it.

People he would do anything to protect. Yes, he thought, he had made the right decision. He would support this alliance, and fight for the village to accept it. It would be their protection, and with it he would give them a life they had never previously had before. He would learn about it, and discuss it, and report it to his people. But this village was theirs as much as his, and though he trusted Naruto in his decision, his people would make the final choice.

And that would be the right choice.

His eyes lingered upon the village and the beauty it represented. Then, as he turned, he spotted something in his peripheral vision, high in the cloudy blue sky. A bird—a large, white one that Gaara had never seen before in his village, flew gracefully across the sky. It would occasionally disappear into a patch of clouds, and was making its way steadily towards him. He stared at it for a moment, and felt a strange feeling come over him. It felt like a stone had dropped into his stomach, and as he watched the bird, getting closer and closer to his tower, the stone seemed to grow larger and heavier. His eyes narrowed, and he turned, beginning to undo his white Kazekage robes. He did it with swift, hurried motions, revealing beneath a solid red outfit. He walked towards the door, taking with him as he left the office a large gourd, the size of an adult man, which rested beside it.

For the first time in his life, he knew absolutely that something was wrong.

* * *

Deidara smiled slightly in excitement when a dark red dot appeared on the top of the tower below him. He had been circling it for a few minutes, deciding how he should enter. Already he had slain a few guards around its perimeter, using little bits of his clay. It was such a wonderful feeling! He shivered every time he heard the sound of his art becoming dust—whether it was a small bang or a tumultuous boom. He had no idea how anybody could not enjoy it. 

It was one reason he didn't understand his partner Sasori. How could anyone want art to immortalize something? It was unnatural. Nothing was immortal. Hence, how could art do something like that? Art was supposed to show the fleetingness of time and life. It should only last as long as _the__feeling_ that it represented did.

And as he watched his target take his place upon the roof, he felt a surge of life throughout his limbs. This, he knew, was going to be fun. He almost attacked then and there, not wanting that feeling he held to go to waste.

He guided his bird downwards. There was no point in hiding or escaping at this point. Besides, he was confident—yet another feeling he knew he had to put into this next set—that he could take on a young boy, who had yet to fully grow into his boots and britches as Kazekage, of all things. He brushed aside the fringe that covered his left eye—but rather than a left eye being there, there was a small, rectangular device with a shiny glass lens set within, like a camera—it was an ocular enhancement device, something he had had implanted long ago to help him see his target better from the sky. So, long before a normal man could see Gaara's face, Deidara was staring at it with a hungry passion.

Oh yes, he thought. This would be fun.

"So you noticed me, yeah?" he shouted down to Gaara, laughing.

Gaara stared up at him, coldly. "There are no birds like that here. What do you want?"

Deidara smiled, reaching into his cloak and one of the large bags full of his special clay. From it he plucked two models he had created in transit, ready to greet this young _jinchuuriki_. He held them out with a flourish, his smile growing wider.

"I'm surprised nobody's told you. I'm here to capture you. You don't need to know more than that…yeah!"

'_Akatsuki, then,'_ thought Gaara, with a dark frown. Of course he had heard of the rogue group—Jiraiya had come and gone ages ago, telling the Sand about them and their apparent goals. To capture the _bijuu_, some of which resided within the bodies of shinobi.

These were called _jinchuuriki_. Like Naruto and Gaara.

"How about we get this show on the road!" Deidara thrust his figurines into the air, and moments after they left his hand they burst into clouds of smoke. A fraction of a second later they appeared again, one the size of a small dog—a crane-like bird with a long neck and long, thin wings; the other the size of a large horse—a frightening-looking beast with three long heads, large bat-like wings, and a long, whipping tail. The crane shot towards Gaara like a bullet, tucking its wings to its side and stretching its neck out as far as it could go.

Gaara swept a hand up. The large gourd upon his back suddenly released from its top a large stream of sand, which gathered in front of Gaara forming a perfectly rectangular shield, about a foot thick. The crane swerved, attempting to duck under, but Gaara's sand reacted in turn, and converged around it.

But the other beast did not head for Gaara; instead it began to circle around the Kazekage's tower, flapping slowly and never takings its three heads off Gaara.

So Gaara attacked. Thrusting out a hand, Gaara sent a long tendril of sand at Deidara. The bird that the Stone-nin stood on floated up, avoiding the tendril, and Deidara laughed, making a seal. The three-headed monster suddenly moved, faster than Gaara would have believed, and shot towards him.

Gaara swept the shield of Sand containing the captured crane across to face the three-headed beast. More Sand flowed from his gourd into the shield, making it stronger and thicker, and thus enabling it to absorb the considerable impact from the second figurine.

Deidara smiled.

"Art's the bomb!"

Gaara's world exploded.

The crane tucked and crushed within Gaara's sand shield responded to its creator's command by suddenly detonating with the force of four or five explosive notes. It blew apart the shield at the same instant the other figurine flapped its wings in and exploded as well—though much more violently. It ripped across the silent air and completely obliterated what little was on the roof of the tower, while throwing Gaara off his feet and then off the edge of the building. If it hadn't been for his final layers of defense—the unconsciously reacting sand that had plagued him all his life, as well as the second skin that he always wore, he would have been defeated right then. But perhaps that was what Deidara had intended, because he swept down as soon as Gaara began to fall, ready to catch the unconscious boy.

Unfortunately, Gaara had not yet lost consciousness. Even with the explosion ringing like a booming bell in his ears, he had enough sense to stop his fall with his sand, creating a small platform for him to stand on. He looked up, seeing Deidara frowning at him.

"Damn," the _Akatsuki_ member muttered, reaching into his cloak to retrieve more clay. He had been expecting the last attack to be the final one. Now he had lost the element of surprise, and Gaara knew what his clay could do. The young Kazekage wouldn't make that mistake again.

When the ringing faded, Gaara stood and crossed his arms. He looked up towards Deidara again, his pale eyes with those dark rings boring into Deidara's single blue. The hardened _Akatsuki_ member could not repress a slight shudder, in seeing those eyes.

A shudder of excitement.

"This is…" Deidara grinned, "starting to get really fun…yeah."

He thrust two more figurines into the air, which became animated as a pair of hawks, which flew towards Gaara in speedy, twisting arcs. Gaara raised his hands, making his sand platform rise swiftly up, to Deidara's level. He then thrust out one, towards the former Stone-nin. Two tendrils of sand burst from his gourd and curled around his body, forming two tubes. Gaara's eyes narrowed.

'_Sabaku Juurensha!'_

The sand coils burst apart, suddenly flinging a hail of small pellets of super-compressed sand as fast and deadly as kunai. Deidara's mount dove beneath the cloud of bullets, while his two previous art projects flew upwards towards Gaara, beneath his platform. In another moment they had been sliced apart, and were falling away from the young Kazekage; two blades of sand receded into the platform, while Gaara stared steadily at Deidara, as if he had not noticed the previous threat.

The _Akatsuki_ member snarled. He guided his bird away from the tower, out towards the city. He gathered several small bits of clay into his left palm, letting the mouth upon his palm take it in and reshape it. With his right, he held out an already formed figurine—that of a fearsome looking creature with a lion's head and body, but a scorpion's tail, bat-like wings, and small horns above each ear. When it sprang to life, Deidara sent it at Gaara again. Gaara did not move.

And so the creature did. It flew below Gaara, straight towards the window of the Kazekage's tower. Deidara gave a triumphant yell as the figurine crashed through the window, and he made the seal for it to detonate.

But it did not.

Instead of a near-shattering boom, which would have completely destroyed the entire floor of the tower and hopefully cause it to collapse, there was but a muffled groaning sound. Instead of lots of light and sound and hopefully lots of death as well, there was nothing. For a moment, Deidara was left with a feeling of complete dissatisfaction. His Christmas presents had turned out to be coal. His art had been called mediocre. He hadn't gotten that kunai set he had been admiring so for his birthday.

He looked at Gaara, who stood, as silent and unmoving as ever. Arms crossed, his gaze forward. But a moment later, Deidara recognized that something was not right about the boy. It was not that he was keeping perfectly still—but it was that he was suddenly without his gourd. It was compounded by the fact that a second later, a figure appeared in the broken window. There stood Gaara, with his gourd, a smoking sphere of sand hovering behind him.

Deidara scowled at the boy. He looked at the Gaara that faced him, suddenly realizing what he had done. A Sand clone, and the use of _Kawarimi no jutsu_ to quickly escape before Deidara had been able to notice. And obviously, he had used that special sand that had kept him safe from Deidara's first attack to smother the explosion. Deidara glared at the hovering orb, which began to dissipate and return to Gaara's gourd. He narrowed his eye.

Gaara then stepped back onto his platform, which had flown down to greet him. The sand clone vanished into the platform, and as soon as Gaara was fully on it, it shot towards Deidara. Gaara raised his arms into the air suddenly, his eyes never leaving Deidara.

The desert suddenly came alive, in a surging geyser of sand. From the edges of the village, where the desert began, to the very streets below, sand responded to Gaara's call, flowing up towards him like a many monstrous snakes or flowing sky dragons. Deidara's eye widened, and he guided his mount as far away from the Kazekage as he could. The swirling mass of sand, like a rain cloud full to bursting, hovered above Gaara, waiting for his order.

Below the raging battle, the people of the sand gazed skywards, amazed by the sudden gathering of sand above them. Those with the best eyes could see the two figures, hovering in mid-air, and some could even recognize one as their Kazekage.

Below the tower, there were two such people—Temari of the Sand, and her brother, Kankuro. They knew their youngest brother's form anywhere; and they too knew the sight of the black-cloaked man. They had heard the same news from Jiraiya. So _Akatsuki_ had arrived.

"What is going on?" a voice asked, behind them.

Baki was there, but it had not been him who had spoke. Behind him was a group of extremely small people. At the head of them, a small, white-haired man wearing green goggles stood, and it was he who had spoken.

"Who is—" Kankuro began, but Temari stopped him with a look.

"Gaara-sama is up there? Who is that with him?" asked Baki, looking to Temari.

"_Akatsuki," _she said, returning her gaze to the fight. "We were unprepared. I didn't think they'd be attacking by now."

"Damn," grunted Baki.

"Who the devil is Akatsuki?" Mekkatorque piped.

Above, Gaara attacked. The cloud of sand exploded into life, hundreds of demonic grasping claws reaching out to grab and crush Deidara atop his little bird. His mount sped backwards while he readied another group of models to employ against the young Kazekage. In his hand now appeared one reptile with flitting, dragonfly-like wings, and one large bird resembling the one he stood on; but he did not immediately bring them to life. No, he needed to get closer, and somehow avoid that annoying shield that seemed to always gather around the boy. It would be pointless to waste more clay testing out his theory—which was that the sand in the boy's gourd was different from the sand he was now using to attack. He could vaguely sense something off about that sand, whenever it was summoned, and he figured that it had something to do with the demon that inhabited the boy—the cursed priest Shukaku.

He weaved through a forest of claw-like appendages, and as he went beneath the giant sand cloud, it began to descend towards him. It opened like the maw of some great monster, attempting to swallow him whole. He thrust one of his two figurines into the air, giving it life and sending it up into the devouring sand. The bird became gigantic, even bigger than his own mount, and flew straight into the open cavern. As soon as it struck a barrier, the innermost wall, it burst in an immense explosion, ripping the cloud apart for a moment and destroying many of the claws that were attempting to grab the _Akatsuki_ member.

With a triumphant grin, Deidara sent his other figurine out in front of him. Upon wings that flittered a hundred times a minute the reptile, about as big as a large dog, shot towards Gaara. He remained solid as a statue, with arms crossed and eyes piercing. The model buzzed straight into the barrier of sand that suddenly surrounded Gaara in the time it would take one to blink. But it did not explode, and instead continued to grasp, clawing at the wall in a vain attempt to get through. Deidara soared beneath Gaara, suddenly flinging out his right hand and beginning to make a seal.

Gaara's gourd suddenly burst, and the red-haired young man thrust a hand downwards. Before Deidara could move away, a glob of sand the size of a man's body wrapped itself around Deidara's right arm.

'_Sabaku Kyuu!'_

Gaara clenched his open fist in fierce, violent manner, and the glob of sand suddenly compressed with such violent force that Deidara's arm was crushed into a rail-thin rod of bone, meat, and blood. The _Akatsuki _member screamed in agony, writhing and attempting to wrench his ruined arm away from the bloody prison that held it. His mount dove downwards, taking with it all but Deidara's right arm. The wound spewed a fountain of blood, staining the white surface of his perfect figurine.

Gaara didn't bat an eye. He had seen so much blood in his life that it no longer mattered to him. This man was an enemy, and he would deal with enemies in the way they were supposed to be dealt with.

Deidara clutched the bleeding stump in agony, his eye furiously boring into Gaara's lifeless, corpse-skin green ones, even as he reached into his cloak. But from it he now pulled a small vial of dark green liquid, cursing more violently than a sailor, which he upended into his mouth and then tossed away. The pain immediately began to fade, and the bleeding suddenly stopped. Smoke began to rise from the wound, and Deidara now felt the need to grin as Gaara's mask broke into a look of surprise; watching as Deidara's right arm began to grow back. Spears of bone emerged from the stump, whereupon muscle, blood vessels, nerves and finally flesh began to grow upon them, eventually becoming a whole arm.

'_What is that?' _Gaara thought. '_No such medicine should exist…'_

But even before this process had completed, Deidara was already moving. His mount had taken him far away from Gaara and his mass of sand; he needed to think up another plan, and quick. He had only two potions containing troll's blood, and he didn't want to use the other one for as long as possible. And he could not continue this foolish of attacking and being attacked—he was not made of clay, and soon it would run out.

'_It's a good thing I stocked up on this stuff before we left,' _he thought. '_It would suck to run out around now, especially when this is getting so fun.'_ He glanced around him. He had a few tricks yet he could employ, but one specific one came to him just then. He grinned.

Reaching into one of his pouches, he removed a large chunk of his remaining clay, and let his hand devour it. When it was regurgitated, it had become the model of what was clearly a winged dragon.

* * *

"We must aid him," said Mekkatorque, glancing at the others. 

"How can we?" said Baki. "There is little we can do now. We have to trust Gaara-sama. He has the ability to defeat this man."

"Of that I have no doubt," said Mekkatorque. "But you forget what I think both Lord Gaara and his opponent know—that Lord Gaara is not the only target in this situation."

It was Temari who realized what he was saying first. She looked up. "Shit! We need to get everyone out of here now!"

"What do you—" said Kankuro, frowning.

"Now, dammit! Now!" screamed Temari, looking desperately around her.

* * *

Deidara thrust his figurine into the air. It became the biggest of his creations yet—a fully-grown Azerothian dragon, with spines jutting from every corner of its body, and its mouth opened and roaring soundlessly. It beat two great bat-like wings, hovering beside Deidara and his mount. Deidara lifted a hand, his blue eye cold and narrow, and held it out for Gaara to see, the thumb turned down. 

The dragon dove, and did not rise. Gaara's eyes widened, and he fell with it, the floating dune falling with him. The dragon streaked straight towards the streets below, flapping its great wings and opening its mouth as if to sound the demise of those below. Gaara's hand shot out, and in a great rolling wave the sand went, spilling down in a ferocious flood towards the ground. Gaara was faster—the sand slammed into an invisible ground, a hundred feet above the normal one, at the exact moment the dragon came.

This time, the world truly did explode. In flash of light as bright as the sun and a sound that traveled for hundreds of miles in each direction, the dragon detonated in a burst of power that should have vaporized everything below and around.

But it did not. The massive sand barrier that Gaara had conjured took every bit of the blast, sparing everyone below.

For Gaara, holding up the sand became a hundred times more unbearable; it felt like his arms would be pulled from his sockets, and it felt that every bit of his _chakra_ had been expelled from his body. But still he held on. Tremors wracked his body and arms, which soon become numb. Blood pounded in his temples, and sound raged through his ears, clouding his thoughts. Weakening him.

But still he held on.

The explosion sent such a shockwave that the windows of the Kazekage's tower, on every level and every side, shattered completely. It rippled through the city, causing the citizens to gaze up, from the streets, and out of the windows of their homes, in horror and awe of the mighty plume of fire that had arisen in the sky above their fair village. Though they would not know for sure who had saved them until later, they all felt they knew.

Even those who did not know him felt they knew.

Below the great barrier of sand, Gaara's precious people stood in awe of their friend, brother, and leader's abilities. Kankuro was less astounded by Gaara's powers, for he knew more about them than any other, and more by his sheer force of will. He had saved them all, in that instant. For Kankuro, it simply made true all that Gaara had been seeking to accomplish. With this astounding feat, he had shown the world the lengths he would go to save his village.

Baki had never seen such a display of power in his life; he had seen Gaara's lesser displays quite a few times, but nothing of this magnitude. He thought that the shadow he was now cast in was not the shadow of Gaara' attack, but of Gaara himself. He had become so powerful.

Temari felt shivers of fear throughout her body—not fear for her own life, but fear for her brother's. Though amazed by the sight, she was more concerned with Gaara's ability to keep up with the _Akatsuk_i member. This would have drained him quite a bit, and right now, it was certain that Deidara would be putting into action his second plan of attack.

Mekkatorque came to the same conclusion.

'_I think I know precisely why,' _Mekkatorque thought, '_this world appeals to me so much. To create such people as this—ah, my friend. You have inspired me yet again.'_

* * *

Gaara was not able to relax a moment. As the explosion faded into sound and smoke, Deidara appeared, flying straight at Gaara. From his hand flew a long-necked crane with two pairs of wings. It flew faster than any before it, streaking straight for Gaara. Gaara did not even try to defend—weakened from his previous technique, and knowing that his ultimate defense would rise up to defend him regardless, he spent a moment to rest. He spent every moment of it gazing on his city, hoping that he had saved all of it. He then looked to the side, meeting Deidara's eye once more, and noticing the frightening glint it now held. 

He turned to face the attack. The bird was now ten feet away, and unimpeded, would have reached him in three more seconds.

But encounter an impediment it did.

Streaking from below, a mere five feet from Gaara's floating, hunched form came a beam of electric blue light, which blasted apart the incoming explosive.

Deidara did not have time to scream in fury, for in another moment a second beam had sliced his own mount in two, He stumbled back, as it began to fall, as if surprised that his manufactured model could perish in such a way. He recovered his wits a second later and leapt from his perch, reaching into his pouch to gather more clay for another mount.

"**Now Lord Gaara! Hit him now!" ** A voice called from below, which despite the mechanical distortion, Gaara knew almost instantly. But when he looked down to see the old gnome, he could not. For instead of a gnome there was a massive, vaguely humanoid machine atop his artificial, floating desert-shield. It was a deep blue in color, about nine feet tall, and one of its arms, which resembled little more than a tube, was raised and spewing smoke towards Deidara. It resembled a suit of foreign armor for a giant, when in fact it bore one of the smallest humanoid creatures in any world.

Gaara's body reacted then as swiftly as his sand barrier to the gnome's command; he thrust out his hands, preparing a technique that had been inspired by an enemy he had fought some time ago.

'_Sabaku no Sawarabi!'_

The floating desert suddenly rose up, and the surface began to shift and almost bubble like boiling water. Deidara, clutching a new figurine in his hand and ready to summon it, suddenly found himself face to face with Mekkatorque's machine suit, staring directly into the goggle-covered eyes of the High Tinker. The suit's other arm, which resembled the head of a large hammer, thrust out in a blur and slammed into Deidara's stomach. The _Akatsuki _member threw up blood, blasted away from the giant suit, his mount uncreated. He then twisted, mid-air, to see the floating mass of sand rise up towards him in the form of a thousand spiky, coiling protrusions, like a forest of vines and thorns.

Deidara cried out in surprise and fury as he vanished into the sand forest. His cries were gone as soon as he.

Before Mekkatorque could join him, a small mass of sand came up beneath him, stopping his fall. He rose up gradually then, to join Gaara by his side. The young Kazekage gasped and wheezed, but seemed more at ease now.

"**Well done, Lord Gaara," **Mekkatorque said, grinning beneath the plexi-glass shield that covered the cockpit.

Gaara awarded him with a smile that was larger than normal, which many would have killed to see.

But it vanished, when the sand forest exploded.

Deidara emerged, astride a gigantic owl, his single eye glaring murderously towards the two. His body was perfectly unharmed, save for a few rips and tears in his cloak. Deidara threw two models into the air, summoning them both. They both became dragonflies, streaking towards the two leaders, while Deidara himself flew backwards.

Mekkatorque raised his right arm, and so did his suit—from it he fired a blue beam of light, a laser strong enough to cut steel, which cut in half one of the figurines, while the other dodged down and up to avoid the blast. It continued its flight, now nearly fifteen feet away, weaving expertly away from Mekkatorque's laser. A moment later, perhaps, Mekkatorque would have gotten it; but that same moment two blurs appeared from below Mekkatorque's sand platform.

A winged snake model leapt up and coiled itself around the gnome king's attacking arm, while another coiled around his right leg. Both exploded before Mekkatorque could think of an appropriate response, and his suit's right arm and right leg were suddenly destroyed. Unable to hold his balance, he fell to the side and off the platform.

The dragonfly flew unimpeded, striking Gaara's sand barrier and exploding.

Deidara let out a ringing, cold laugh, which Gaara could hear from behind the barrier. He did not know quite why for a moment, before a flicker of movement right before his eye caught his attention.

There was a moth, pure ghostly white and fluttering noiselessly next to his face.

His eyes widened, and though he jerked away enough to avoid being slain, it was not enough for much else. The moth burst apart in a surprisingly large bang, and everything went black for the young Kazekage.

* * *

The sand fell like rain. 

Temari and Kankuro stared up, their faces mirroring the same look of striking terror. They did not even bother to cover their eyes, as the sand from Gaara's summoning fell towards them like a summer rain.

The sky, though blue, now seemed dark and grey, as the rain fell.

"NO!" Temari roared, as she saw Gaara begin to fall, landing upon Deidara's owl. She lifted her fan from its strap on her back, and flipped it open. Baki grabbed her.

"Don't waste your _chakra_," he said, softly. "It won't reach him."

Temari closed her eyes, willing the sand to stop its flight. Willing Gaara to come back. She looked up again, and felt tears gather—tears that would remain unshed for a while.

Yet, tears that had been gathering for a good deal of time.

"My king!"

"Your highness!" cried several gnomes, staring up as Mekkatorque's suit fell with a resounding crash to the earth bursting apart. They reached it to find him still within, alive and unharmed. The cockpit door opened, and he leapt out, his eyes wide and desperate. He looked up.

…And saw Deidara's owl flying off into the distance. '_No,'_ he thought. '_This can't be.' _How could he have been so foolish! He had underestimated his opponent, and that had cost him Gaara's safety! And now the boy was gone, captured. He looked to his subordinates.

"Do any of you have a mechanostrider? We must pursue them!"

They all nodded. The group of gnomes took small capsules from pouches around their belts, crushing them in their fists and then running through a few hand seals.

'_Summoning: Mechanostrider!'_

"I'll come with you,' hissed Temari, appearing at Mekkatorque's side. Her face was flushed with rage, and her eyes narrowed in the direction of the village entrance. "He's my brother, and I—"

"I need no more reason than that," said Mekkatorque. "Let's go."

Temari nodded, and turned to locate Kankuro.

But the young man was gone.

"Where did Kankuro go?" she asked, looking to Baki.

The man frowned, and glanced about as well. "I thought he was here…"

* * *

"What took you?" the fat _Akatsuki _member asked in his muffled, dispassionate voice. 

"Dammit! That bastard didn't say there'd be gnomes in there…yeah! I nearly got killed 'cause one of them decided to try and be a hero and attack me! I lost an arm in there, too, to this little shit!" He kicked Gaara's limp body. "God, if I hadn't stored some clay in it before he ripped it off, I might not have won."

"Fascinating," his partner said, sounding everything to the contrary. "Let's go. I'm already sick of this place."

"Gladly," grumbled Deidara. "We'd better get out of here quick; a bunch of those bastards are probably going to follow us."

"Let them," said the fat one. "I'll be able to break four hundred in my collection, if they do."

"Yeah, but," snapped Deidara, "that bastard wants us back as quick as possible, to extract the _bijuu_. Let's just get out of here, fast!"

His partner and so-called master was already shuffling away, ignoring the man. Deidara followed, cursing silently under his breath.

The village was nearly out of sight when a voice called out to them.

"Stop! Let him go!"

Deidara frowned, turning back. Sasori had stopped, but did not turn. A young man, dressed entirely in black, stood behind them. He clutched three scrolls in his hands, gripping each with enough force to crumple them. His eyes were black as his outfit and narrowed into glinting onyx daggers.

"Let him go," he said again, now almost a whisper.

Deidara scowled. "Come and get him if you wan—"

"Just leave, Deidara. I'll deal with him myself."

Sasori had turned; Kankuro shivered slightly under the gaze of the emotionless, squinted and glossy eyes of the _Akatsuki_ member. But it took a glance at Gaara's body to rekindle his fury in a heartbeat. He flipped open his three scrolls.

And Akasuna no Sasori stood, and waited.

* * *

"How's he doing, Tenzo?" 

"Yamato, Kakashi-senpai. He's doing well—haven't you been watching?"

"A little," Kakashi said, tucking the small orange book back into a pouch on his vest.

They were looking out across the training field, where Naruto was. He stood at the edge of a small river that Yamato had created several minutes previous, using a simple water _jutsu. _The boy was soaked, and looked to be in a bad-temper, but had not stopped in his efforts. He was performing a training exercise neither had seen before—the blonde was attempting to hold a sphere of water between his hands, using only the Kyuubi's chakra. It had been since he had started a seemingly useless and impossible task. Nearly every time he did it, the water would bubble and boil and begin to evaporate, making it far more difficult to hold onto. That didn't stop the boy from trying, however, and it was a good way of controlling _chakra_. Yamato had ordered him to do something else after he had knocked himself out for the third time in his tree climbing exercise.

"Do you intend to teach him, after this," Yamato asked, "the elemental-recombination technique?"

Kakashi nodded. "From what I've seen, he already knows it to a degree, he just doesn't know that. He's never had any formal training in it in his life. There is an even better reason for teaching it, however. You'll find that out later."

Yamato nodded. His hand was still stretched out in the same fashion as before, and still the same kanji—"seat"—was written on his palm. It was becoming easier to control the demon's _chakra_, ever so slightly, every few hours of every day of their training. It was already three days into it. Naruto was learning quickly, as Kakashi had promised. He suspected that it would take but another weak or so, and Naruto would be able to learn the special training technique Kakashi had promised him.

"Kakashi-san!"

The voice broke into both Yamato and Naruto's thoughts, and Naruto dropped a globule of heated water onto his crotch. He yelled out in surprise and pain, turning to glare murderously at whoever had disturbed him.

With his shaggy black hair and the small bandage that perpetually covered his nose and cheeks, was Hagane Kotetsu, one of Tsunade's personal assistants. He had a despairing look on his face.

"What is it, Kotetsu?" asked Kakashi, noting the young man's worried eyes.

"Tsunade-sama has asked for you and Naruto-kun. You have a mission, a very important one."

Now Naruto was listening as well. "A mission?"

Kotetsu nodded.

"To the Sand. They need our help—their Kazekage has been captured by _Akatsuki_."

* * *

Done. 

Hope the battle was okay. I tried to make it differ from the manga, so you guys wouldn't just get a boring repeat, but it sort of ended up in the same way…sorry.

But enough of that. Not much else to say other than…

**HAPPY HOLIDAYS! MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY WINTER VEIL!**

Hope everyone enjoys their holidays, and since this is the season for giving and sharing, would you guys mind sharing your opinions with me in the form of a **review**? At least it doesn't cost anything…except time…but that's overrated anyways.

Hope you guys get lots of loot and enjoy your time with your families.

Seeya next week!

General Grievous

* * *

Merry Christmas/Channukah/Kwanza/Atheist-Day-of-Presents-and-Togetherness! 

-Noz

* * *

_**Scroll of Seals**_

_Sabaku Juurensha (Desert Hail of Bullets): _Fires bullets made of sand at opponent, very deadly if they strike.

_Special Clay- _Clay of an unknown mix, created by Deidara, that when doused with his chakra can either act as a remote bomb that he exploded when he wishes it to, or he can make explode on impact with another object. He can control the forms of the clay using mouths on the palms of his hand.

_Sabaku Sawarabi (Desert Seedling Fern): _Using Sand from around him, Gaara can create a forest of deadly spikes that impale and kill any caught in them. Inspired by Kaguya Kimimaro's _Sawarabi no Mai (Dance of the Seedling Ferns)_.

_Summon: Mechanostrider: _Uses oil as a medium instead of blood. Summons mechanical mounts that only the gnomes can use: Mechanostriders.

_**Bingo Book**_

**Deidara (Akatsuki)(S-Class)(Boss): **Member of Akatsuki, and an extremely powerful opponent formerly from the Hidden Stone, Deidara is one of the most ruthless ninja in the world. He possesses a powerful but unknown ability to mix and charge special clay that he develops himself to come to life and eventually explode, according to his wishes. He possesses a warped view of art—he believes it a fleeting, instantaneous beauty that cannot be captured forever. He believes true beauty lasts for a moment; and then it is destroyed, when the feeling of beauty vanishes. Art can only last as long as the feeling does, and he believes that nothing can be eternal. He is incredibly skilled and dexterous, and can defeat most opponents before they realize his ability. He is partnered with Sasori in his _Akatsuki _cell.


	5. Urgency

**Disclaimer: Someone shit on the coats! Someone has shit on the coats! Or they might say, "I think someone has shit on the coats!" but you know…that I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft, and that I did not in fact, shit on the coats. Or did I? I was just that guy who said, "What?" and then just blended back in. Like a ghost, I just disappeared, into the crowd. "What? I hope that wasn't _my_ coat!"**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

It was supposed to take three days.

To reach the Sand, it was supposed to be three days of travel, if one considered the average speed of a shinobi and whether the weather conditions were apt or not.

However, for Naruto, Sakura, Tsuwabuki and Kakashi, it took only two.

Naruto had not taken the news Tsunade had delivered well.

"Gaara's been captured!" Naruto roared, as soon as Tsunade had finished telling him that Gaara was the Kazekage, and he had in fact, been captured.

The woman stared at him calmly for a moment, and then nodded softly. "Yes. Roughly ten hours ago, a message was sent from the Sand to us, describing a battle which had previously taken place between Gaara, the Kazekage of the Sand, and an unknown shinobi that used explosive summons, dressed in a black cloak with red clouds upon it—Akatsuki." Her own eyes narrowed slightly at this. She was not happy about it either, especially because Jiraiya had been right. He had, since Naruto had returned and even before, been telling Konoha's allies—the Waterfall, the Sand, and the Mist—that Akatsuki could attack at any time, and that their primary apparent goal was the capture of the _jinchuuriki_ and the _bijuu_—the legendary sources of power that in the past, had been coveted by shinobi villages so much that they had fought wars over them. Jiraiya's information network hadn't revealed anything other than that they were preparing for something, and after nearly two years of lying low, they had surfaced again.

But nobody had expected it to be so sudden—or so direct. The worst fact in everyone's mind about the Akatsuki was that aside from two members—Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame, who had revealed their identities two years ago when they had attempted to capture Naruto—next to nothing was known about their members. There was only a number—nine. There were nine Akatsuki members, excluding Orochimaru, who had apparently once been a part of the group. In any case, it was impossible to prepare any sort of defense against them.

From the news she had received, Akatsuki had just capitalized on that fact, by capturing Gaara in the very village he ruled.

"The Sand has requested aid—and they have included a note from a…" she frowned. "High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque, who has specifically requested Uzumaki Naruto to be in the team sent."

Sakura looked at Naruto, who blinked at the name. "A friend of yours?" she asked.

Naruto nodded. "He's the king of the gnomes, in the other world." He frowned. "He must have gone to talk to Gaara about the Alliance. I didn't think Gaara would be Kazekage, though." His eyes flickered towards Tsunade, and he seemed to come to himself from a daydream. "We have to go now!" he shouted, desperately.

Tsunade nodded. "Your mission is self-explanatory—go to the Sand, find out as much as you can, and then track the Akatsuki members. Retrieve Sabaku no Gaara at all costs." Her eyes shifted towards Yamato, who stood by the door in the back. "I want you to stay here, Yamato."

Yamato blinked. "Hokage-sama?"

"You can take this chance to start preparing for the second part of your own mission. I don't want you leaving the village, not now. When Naruto returns, you'll resume his training."

"Of course," he said, with a small bow, though it did not hide the frown on his face.

"Kakashi," she said, looking at the silver-haired _jounin_. "Exercise the most extreme caution when dealing with these guys, especially when Naruto is there. I want under no circumstances for this to end up being a double rescue mission." She looked at Naruto then, with particular force. "And Naruto, I don't want you doing anything reckless. These guys are not to be underestimated or treated lightly, especially because you'll be one of their targets. If things look like they're about to go wrong, I don't want you there any longer than need be. Don't get yourself killed or worse, captured—that's an order. I'm sending you and your team because I know you guys are trustworthy. Don't do anything stupid, Naruto, which would put you in jeopardy. In this case, put your life before someone else's—that's not an order, Naruto." She sighed. "I want you to promise me that."

There was a long pause. Naruto stared at Tsunade a moment, slightly shocked by her words.

"Promise," she said again, her eyes narrowed and her voice carrying more force than before. Her hands had tightened, and it seemed that if he didn't respond, or responded poorly, she would react violently.

"Right," Naruto finally said. The boy's teeth were clenched and his fists were balled, and his eyes lowered to the ground. Tsunade knew that out of everything she could make him promise, that was the most testing of his philosophy. It was not in Naruto's nature to put his own life before someone else's, especially if that other person was a friend.

"Sakura," she then said, relaxing and looking at the girl, the one that out of the three she felt she knew the best. "Take care of them. I want both of them to come back in one piece."

"Yes," said Sakura, with a nod and a small smile.

"Get the hell out of here," she then said, waving them off. "You've got an S-Class Mission to complete."

When they had gone, she let her eyes and Hokage mask fall. Her forehead wrinkled with worry, and she gripped the desk with such force that her fingers bit into the wood. She had hated to make Naruto do that—make a promise, especially one that went against his own moral code. However, in this case, she couldn't afford to let him do whatever he felt like doing.

Not after he had just come back into their lives. Not when his life was in the most danger out of all of them.

'_You'd better keep your promise, Naruto,' _she thought to herself, knowing full well that he could not hear her.

'_Please, keep your promise.'_

* * *

They had quickly prepared themselves; after gathering a few day's supplies from their apartments, they had met by the gates—only to discover Benedictus waiting for them.

"Just come to say my goodbyes," he said, with a nod. "I will remain here, until you return. There is something bothering me here, and I cannot begin to understand what. Be safe, boy—I know that Kira would not wish to find her friend in pieces when I return to see her."

Naruto nodded. "Okay, old man." He tried to smile at him, but the biting worry in his stomach made it seem painful. Benedictus placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, and then walked away, leaving them alone.

"Hmm, what a nice old man," said Kakashi, offhandedly. His eyes flickered to Naruto. "Shall we get going?"

'**_Yes!'_**said Tsuwabuki, echoing Naruto's statement as the doors to the village opened, and they were off.

Later that night, after traveling well into it due to Naruto's worry, they stopped and made camp. Naruto then heard the full story behind Gaara's ascension to Kazekage.

"It was right after the _Chuunin Exams_," said Sakura, sitting next to the blonde by the small fire that they had built. "When I'd met him during them, he told me that he had planned to become Kazekage, and since you had left had been training as hard as possible to become worthy of that title." She gave a slight smile. "He's changed quite a bit, since you last saw him, Naruto. All of that anger is completely gone, and I think that's what everyone began to see. He'd even—he's even-- made some friends in the village." She giggled. "He took me to a ramen shop, a little like Ichiraku's, that was run by some nice girls who had taken quite the fancy to him.

"It was after I left that I received a letter from Temari-san, telling me that Gaara had been made Kazekage by the Council of Sunagakure." She smiled at the memory, and then looked at Naruto. The boy was staring at the fire, his eyes downcast. They then flickered up to meet hers, and Naruto tried to brighten.

"You inspired him, Naruto," said Sakura. "He wanted to become Kazekage because of you. He saw how you fought, and what you fought for, and realized that he had been wrong all this time. He did it to make amends to everyone he hurt, and everyone he terrified; but mostly to protect those who had become _his_ friends, Naruto." She smiled sadly at him. "He did it because of what you showed him."

'**_In other words,' _**Tsuwabuki said, lying at Naruto's side, '**_she's telling you to buck up and start prepping to kick ass. It's what you do best.'_**

Though the worry did not fade, Naruto allowed himself a small, true smile. He ruffled Tsuwabuki's head, saying "Stupid fox," in an affectionate tone, and then grinned a grin free of pain at Sakura. He suddenly felt better, and, as Sakura had hoped, even more determined to reach the Sand and find out where Gaara was.

They traveled all the next day, and well into the night—Naruto refused to stop, saying that the faster they got there, the easier it would be to keep Gaara's trail. Kakashi was a little surprised at this foresight, and conceded to it. They pressed on, and by noon the next day, the cavernous walls of the Sand village could be seen in the distance. It was mid-morning when they arrived. They were met at the entrance by familiar faces.

Mekkatorque smiled sadly when he saw Naruto, whose face was painted with a worry that easily matched Temari's. The young woman stood by the High Tinker, her eyes widening slightly when Naruto walked up. She was a little surprised by how much the boy had changed since she had last seen him. He had certainly grown taller—and gotten handsomer. She shook her head, and gave Naruto a slight bow to acknowledge his presence. Her eyes turned to Sakura, then, and she gave a half-smile.

"I wish I could say it was good to see you…" she said.

Sakura nodded. Her eyes drifted towards the others who had come to greet them. "Where's Kankuro?"

"The hospital," said Temari, her mouth thinning and her brow creasing with worry. "Gaara wasn't the only victim of the attack. We haven't been able to get a coherent word out of him—he's badly wounded. He's been poisoned with something none of our medic-nin's have been able to identify, much less cure, and if an antidote isn't found soon…" She grit her teeth, looking more wounded than if a blade had cut her arm off. "Just come. You're a medic-nin, right? Maybe you can help." She spun on her heel, and walked quickly away. Sakura went fast on her heels, while the rest followed at a slower pace.

Mekkatorque turned to Naruto, as they walked. "Before the attack came, he and I did meet, my boy. He was completely receptive of the idea, and I saw a similar determination beginning to burn in him by the end." His eyes became downcast. "I tried to aid him. I even thought I had, for a moment. But that man was immensely skilled, and caught me by surprise. I feel as if I have failed in my duty once again. Some alliance this has turned out to be, hmm?"

Naruto tried to offer a smile, or an encouraging word. But it didn't work. He couldn't manage even a flicker of either, and remained silent with fists clenched, as they walked. Mekkatorque watched the boy, and felt more guilt stab at his aged heart. He had failed far too many times in his life, he now knew. First his people, and now his friend. He heaved a great sigh.

Neither spoke for the rest of the walk.

* * *

Sakura held out a glowing hand, and laid it atop Kankuro's bandaged chest. She kept her eyes square on the area she was touching, and taking a long, slow breath, began to slowly draw her hand away. She took even rapider breaths and all at once jerked her hand away, pulled with it, contained within the green aura around her hand, a stream of the foulest, blackest fluid she had ever seen. When it came free of Kankuro's wound, even contained in the aura of her _chakra_, it stank vilely, like burning battery acid. She quickly gathered it into a sphere, and then placed it into a glass container on the young man's bedside table.

But she wasn't done. She quickly held her hands above the boy's flesh again, and after a few calming breaths, she let her _chakra _flow into him, repairing his wounded body as she moved her hands up and down his chest, over to his arms, up to his neck and head, and even down to his stomach and legs. Nobody spoke as she did this, some—such as Kakashi and Naruto—in awe of the display of skill, while others still worried that something would go wrong, or that she hadn't made it in time. She was extremely thorough, and did not stop moving from start to finish of her examination. Finally, she stepped back and let her hands fall in tandem with a deep exhale. She smiled sideways at Temari.

"It's okay. The poison's been drawn out and I was able to repair most of the damage it did. Whoever made it was a genius—it attacks both the central and the peripheral nervous systems, inducing paralysis in the limbs and eventually cardiac arrest and neural suffocation. It takes a long time, but it's extremely painful and destructive." She glanced back at the black, fluid that rested by his bedside. "He'll survive, but he won't be able to do much of anything for a few weeks. Nerves aren't the best healers, and that poison was extremely damaging to them. If I had come a day or so later, it would have been too late."

Temari gave the barest of nods as she walked over and knelt by her brother's bedside. "Thanks," she said, to Sakura. She reached over and placed a hand on Kankuro's forehead, feeling how cool it was compared to earlier, and brushing away a small errant lock of hair. "Moron," she muttered to the puppeteer. "You complete moron."

"Sorry…" he mumbled, startling everyone present, save Kakashi, and causing Temari to shoot to her feet. For a moment, relief and elation to see her bother able to speak brightened her face; it then degenerated into anger, born from love, and she promptly slapped Kankuro in the face.

"Ow!" the young man shouted, nearly sitting up before pain bereaved him of his motor functions, and he fell onto his back again, gasping. "OW!"

"Don't move, Kankuro-san," muttered Sakura, giving Temari a slight glare. "You're badly injured. You just spent nearly two days in an poison-induced delirium."

"'Course, you look like you've just spent two days in a bathtub full of your own sweat," said Naruto, finding in his own relief a small pocket of cheekiness.

"Naruto? That you…?" Kankuro muttered, looking up. He really did look bad—his skin was pale, clammy and drenched in sweat; his eyes were sunken and dried, as were his lips; his dark brown hair was matted and untidy, and he shook uncontrollably every so often. The bandages, wrapped as tight as a shirt around his torso and down one arm, looked in desperate need of changing. He squinted through the bright haze of the hospital room at Naruto's face that swum above him. "When the hell did you get here?"

"Just a few minutes ago," muttered Naruto. "We came about…Gaara."

At the name, Kankuro closed his eyes and turned away from Naruto, his face shrinking into a mask of despair.

"Kankuro-san," Kakashi suddenly said. He stood by the doorway, leaning against the frame and had been watching the scene passively. "We need you to tell us all you can about what happened. From what Temari-san said, you were attacked, and when she and Mekkatorque-san arrived with some reinforcements, you were already unconscious and severely injured."

Kankuro nodded. "I rushed into it. I got my ass kicked because I did something so absolutely stupid. No matter how hard I could have fought, I would have never been able to beat that guy."

"You didn't fight the one Gaara did, then?" Kakashi asked as he walked up to the bed and staring down at Kankuro's prone form, his eye narrowed in intensity.

"No. I might have won against him, seeing as how Gaara and that gnome guy nearly did him in. The guy I fought was someone who even on my best day, thinking clearly and probably with Temari by my side, I wouldn't have been able to defeat—he broke my puppets and poisoned me before I even had a chance to attack him, and he didn't use any fancy tricks or _jutsu_ to do it." He suddenly stopped, realizing that he had begun to wheeze and had begun to breath faster, panting such that he might as well have returned to the battlefield for those brief moments. "Luck would have it that the guy I fought was the one who had originally created my puppets.

"That bastard, Akasuna no Sasori."

* * *

"Finally," muttered Sasori, as they broke through the last of the lush flora, entering a large clearing. Before him and his partner was a towering waterfall which spilled into a clear, beautiful pool of water that teemed with life. A forest surrounded the pool, with towering emerald trees, so vibrant that they seemed freshly painted, and that shook slightly in the breeze or when a bird or small mammal moved within their foliage. Ferns and outgrowing plants on the ground formed a barrier around the crystal clear water of the pool, as if nature had intended to hide it away from the prying eyes of man forever. It seemed such a perfect place, untouched by everything; too perfect, in fact, and that was why it had been chosen.

Deidara guided his mount, upon which the prone body of Gaara of the Sand lay, down the slope to the pool and then across it. Deidara walked across the surface as if the water was solid as stone, with his partner, Sasori, walking silently behind in the same manner. The two stopped by the waterfall, which sprayed their faces with mist and wetted their finely woven cloaks. Deidara scowled at the waterfall, as if it had done him some great offense.

"Hey!" he snarled. "Open up, assholes…yeah!"

There was a moment of silence in which both Deidara and Sasori stared at the waterfall, seemingly expecting it to answer. And curiously enough, a moment later, it did.

A line shot through the middle of the falling water, at first a thick and barely noticeable as an ant among thousands of blades of grass, but soon widening and growing to the point where it split the waterfall into two. In the middle of this massive gap was a solid stone slab with a thin part down the middle—a door. On the door were dozens of black, nonsensical inscriptions that formed a perfectly defined circle. Kanji dotted the inside of the circle, mixing and combining with more inscriptions—it resembled, in the end, a giant black sun. As they watched, the inscriptions faded, and the door began to open with a rumbling sound. It split at the part, and the two stone slabs moved to the side, allowing just enough space for Sasori's wide form to walk through. Deidara went after him, his mount and its baggage landing and folding its wings to fit through the door and hop after him.

They entered a massive cavern, flooded with darkness. Immediately after Deidara's model cleared the doorway, the slabs shut again, and what little light had been offered was stolen away again. If it weren't for the fact that Deidara's eyes were quite used to such darkness, he would have complained some more.

"Did you get it?"

The voice shot from the blackness, striking Deidara and Sasori's ears with its intensity, but immediately soothing them with a charisma that neither could ever explain.

"Yeah," said Deidara, flicking a finger at his model, which dumped its cargo—Gaara's limp form—upon the ground in front of him, before disappearing in a whirl of white smoke and returning to his outstretched hand. "We got it. You didn't tell us there'd be gnomes there, though."

"Hmph. It wasn't expected. You came through anyways." It then changed slightly in its tone. "You seem bored, Sasori."

The large _Akatsuki_ member snorted. "As if it was that obvious. Let's get this over with. I haven't had any fun in quite a while," he looked pointedly the darkness, as if he knew exactly where the voice came from, when there was no form or body visible, and the voice seemed to come from everywhere. "Even some annoying Sand puppeteer—who had the gall to use puppets I created—wasn't enough to relieve me of my boredom. I've been waiting for my assignment."

"You'll get it," said the voice, hinted with steel. "Then let's begin."

With those words, the darkness began to shift and move. It began to take shape, becoming seven hazy, vaguely human figures that seemed to be made from black smoke, save for the eyes—the eyes of each one were pearly white, and perfectly visible in the darkness. From the frightening, inanimate grey that stood in the middle, to the clearly visible crimson of Itachi's _Sharingan_, Deidara and Sasori could see all of their comrades, and knew them just from the eyes.

The middle, with the grey eyes that spiraled inwards, lifted an amorphous hand and thrust it to the ground. The cavern shook and echoed with a mighty rumbling—and from the blackness, a monstrous shape materialized, towering above them all. But unlike the seven black figures before it, it was real, made of solid, black stone and as large as a house. What the statue depicted, neither of the two Akatsuki members was quite sure. It was nothing more than a giant humanoid head and upper torso, with two massive arms rising up in front of it open as if ready to accept some great gift. But they were shackled together, as if whatever gift it might get was only fit for a prisoner. Its head was wreathed in thorny appendages, like the branches of a massive and awful tree, sealing it away in some unbreakable prison from which it would never escape. The statue's face was horrible and deformed; vaguely humanoid with blindfolded eyes and a mouth filled with sharp teeth, biting a large bit as a domesticated horse or ox might. Upon the great blindfold were nine eyes, closed in pain or rapture. At the ends of the arms the seven figures suddenly appeared upon, each on a different finger. It left but three unoccupied, two for Sasori and Deidara, and one for the missing member that they knew would never return.

"It'll take three days. We begin immediately. The _Ichibi_ is the first of many," the man with the eyes of grey said.

Deidara and Sasori nodded, walking and shuffling past Gaara's body, which lay limp, and alone, on the cold ground. The grey-eyed shroud made a seal, and statue leapt to life, releasing the bit in its mouth and stretching the maw wide.

'_Fuin Jutsu: Genryu Kyu Fujin.'_

From the mouth exploded nine swirling forms—the purest of white yet illuminating nothing in the cavern. They were shaped like the heads of dragons, with mouths agape and snarling unheard. They converged around Gaara, lifting him into the air, enrobing him in white light.

And he awoke.

And he screamed.

The white was not purifying or lovely; it burned his flesh and filled his mind with nothingness. He could not think, and so he screamed with all his might, some part of him hoping that he would be heard.

But he wasn't.

He screamed and screamed, but he was alone in the world again.

* * *

"Chiyo-baasama," said Baki, falling to one knee as soon as he entered the small garden. He kneeled facing a pair of extremely old people, who sat at the edge of a pool. The first, an incredibly old man with shocking white hair and an oblong head covered in so much loose skin that he looked like a melted wax sculpture. Even his eyes were invisible, obscured beneath two large flaps of skin above his eyes. He was dressed in a black robe and had a small round hat fitted over the top of his head. He sat, clutching a fishing rod perfectly still in his hands, and humming something under his breath with a small, crooked smile on his face.

But Baki had not addressed the man, who he sat quietly while the one Baki had addressed, an aged woman, looked up and glared at the man.

"What do you want?" she asked, narrowing her small, button black eyes, peeking out from behind similar flesh scraps. Her face was pale, wrinkled, bloated and covered in liver spots. Her nose was tiny and squashed and her hair was limp and ragged, the same white as the man's. Her mouth was creased into a faint line hidden among the wrinkles, and along with her eyes, created a reproving look that made Baki swallow. Dealing with Chiyo was like dealing with an angry snake—you made one sudden movement and your life could end in a flash. In her old age she had grown quite bitter and frighteningly cynical, making dealing with her always a chore. She was, however, the most senior member of the Sand aside from her brother, who sat opposite her on the pool, happily fishing away. She had served on the Council for quite a while, and had taken over a few duties of Kazekage after the death of the Yondaime—even going so far as to oversee theprevious _Chuunin Exams_. However, among the members of the Sand, she was one of the few most fiercely opposed to an alliance with Konoha.

It was understandable, however. She had lost a son to one of the most skilled Leaf-nin in the past war.

"We have information on who attacked Gaara and the Sand; Kankuro, who fought the perpetrator, was just cured by the Konoha shinobi, and…"

"You called Konoha?" she snapped. "Pathetic. To think that our own village has fallen so they cannot even ask their own for aid. What poison is there that I cannot cure?" She glared at Baki through her shrunken eyes. She was the only other person who could make him shiver, aside from Gaara.

"Forgive me, Chiyo-baasama. I was going to ask you, after the conventional medical techniques failed, but the Konoha-nin arrived earlier than expected, and were able to aid him just in time."

"I suppose you called the Slug-Lady, then?"

"No, a young girl, her apprentice. Haruno Sakura."

The name was familiar to Chiyo, but she didn't bother to try and recall. A Leaf-nin was a Leaf-nin.

"Then if he is cured, why have you come to me?"

Baki swallowed, and nodded. "The Akatsuki member who defeated Kankuro when he attempted to rescue Gaara-sama, has been identified. He is…" Baki swallowed again. "Akasuna no Sasori."

Chiyo's small eyes grew wider, and she turned her head slightly to look at him. "What?"

"It was Sasori," said Baki, again.

The old man was no longer smiling. He looked at Chiyo with a deep frown, and laid his fishing rod to the side, as Chiyo had. The old woman stood, her face set in a deep, powerful scowl.

Sasori.

The name once brought joy to her heart. He had been her very own grandson, to spoil and to cherish as grandmothers were allowed to. He had been a small, final hope that the world wasn't as terrible as it should have been, after her son and daughter-in-law had perished in the Great Shinobi Wars, thanks in part to that awful Hatake Sakumo. He had been something for her to hold on to in this world, something that allowed her to continue to fight and to help the Sand in every way she could. She had done it to make the Sand a better place for Sasori to live in. She had done it to make the world a little bit brighter, so Sasori would not have to stumble blindly through it. He had been an object for her give what little love she had left. And for a time, he had accepted this. He had acted much like he normally had, before the death of his parents. But that had not lasted. Sasori had begun to change, at first in barely noticeable ways that she thought odd, but perfectly understandable for a boy with no parents to guide him. He had stopped eating meat, for example. He had started to smile less. He shut himself in his room for a few hours each day and whatever he did Chiyo was too polite to ask about.

And then he had dug up his parents' corpses. And then he had taken them to his room, where he had stripped them of flesh and removed their innards. He had then built into the dried husks of their bodies, traps and weapons of the vilest sort, and had replaced their flesh with _chakra_-soaked wood. He had cut out their eyes, and put shiny glass orbs instead.

He had made them into his playthings. He had made them into puppets.

"So that's it, hmm?" She dusted off her robe, and began to hobble towards Baki. '_So that's where you've been, all this time, eh grandson? I've finally found you, then. Good. Maybe now I can set things right.' _"The Konoha-nin, I'm assuming, are going to track Gaara, then?"

"Yes, they'll be going at dawn tomorrow, to track the Akatsuki. They have a good way to track them, it seems."

"Fine," she said.

"Are you going with them, sister?" the old man said, still at the pool, his eyes looking sadly towards her back.

"Yes," she said, smirking. "I think it's time that I give him a bit more love before I spear him through the heart. He's been alive far too long."

* * *

"HOKAGE-SAMA! WE HAVE RETURNED FROM OUR GREAT MISSION, REVELING IN THE POWER OF YOUTH!"

"Gai, you do that again, and I swear to whatever god there is that you'll never speak, or even walk, again."

Gai's gleaming teeth suddenly stopped gleaming, and the cool pose he had struck suddenly became weird and even in his eccentric mind, embarrassing. He took a step back, and gave a small bow to the woman who sat at the desk. Sweat began to roll down his face and neck, worried that if he spoke another word, she would act on her promise.

"I told you that was a bad idea," muttered Tenten as she walked by her bowing teacher. She quickly bowed to Tsunade. "Mission completed without complication, Hokage-sama."

Neji and Lee came in a moment after her. Lee was brimming with excitement, wanting to express himself in much the same way Gai had, but holding himself back after hearing Tsunade's threat. Neji just ignored the two.

"Good," said Tsunade. Neji walked forwards and placed on her desk the mission report, written in his neat and tidy print, as she had requested him to do, for she could not usually decipher Gai's unruly scrawl. She thought a moment, as they turned and prepared to leave. "I have some news, before you guys leave. Naruto's back."

They all turned their heads, in one simultaneous and eerie motion that made Tsunade shiver. Lee and Gai looked as if they had just beheld Heaven in all it's glory, and had just been declared its azure protectors; Neji's pupil-less eyes gleamed with sudden interest, as prospects for a rematch began to dance through his usually bland thoughts; and Tenten's were filled with amazement and joy, which was mostly directed towards the other two members of her team, for she did not know Naruto well enough to share their joy. She vowed, however, she would change that fact.

"Naruto-kun's back? HE HAS FINALLY RETURNED TO US?" roared Lee, pumping a fist into the air.

"Yeah," muttered Tsunade, suddenly wishing she hadn't said anything. "He came back a week or so ago. You missed him."

"He's on a mission?" asked Neji.

"Yeah. I would have asked you guys to go, if you were here," she said. "But you weren't. I was in need of a back up team that was ready and able to go."

Neji nodded. Tenten, however, asked, "Who did you send?"

"Team Eight. They had returned just the day I sent Naruto and his team off, so they were prepared. They were also just as interested in seeing Naruto." She then laced her fingers together on her desk, and narrowed her eyes, scowling.

"S-something wrong, Hokage-sama?" asked Tenten, noticing the woman's darkened features.

The woman looked up, seeing the worry on Tenten's face, and sat up. She shook her head. "No. Nothing's wrong. You're dismissed."

"She's worried," whispered Tenten, when they were out of the room, and walking down the hallway. "This mission must be dangerous…I've never seen her like that."

Gai made a small noise of agreement. For once, his eyes were narrowed into a look of gravity, and he seemed to be thinking hard. "Yes. I am thinking that this mission has very large consequences, and she is worried that she may have done something wrong. I'd say it was something to do with Naruto-kun."

"Why?" asked Tenten.

"Because out of all of those people, I would think there are only two of them she cares more about than just as a Hokage. While I do believe she is concerned for both, I think it is Naruto-kun she is most worried about—he has just returned, after all, and should something happen to him in such a short time…"

Tenten's stomach churned. Now she was worried as well. She glanced over at Neji and Lee, and saw that their faces were mixtures of the same seriousness and worry as Gai's. So they felt the same. '_No,'_ she thought. '_Definitely worse.'_ She didn't know Naruto as well as they did, and she knew that they would be far more concerned for him than she ever could be.

But for their sake, she worried too.

* * *

Kurenai glanced to the side as she leapt over a particularly large sand dune, landing in such a way that she hardly disturbed the soft ground beneath her. Hinata was close by on her right, her _Byakugan_ active and searching. On her other side was Shino, silent and so shrouded in cloth it was difficult to tell what he was thinking. Ahead of her were Kiba and Akamaru, their noses constantly twitching for signs of their allies, most especially Naruto, whom they were very excited to see. They were two days into their pursuing of Team Seven, and were halfway across the desert. It was already getting dark, and Kurenai was thinking it was better to stop and continue tomorrow at dawn, for it would be very difficult to travel in the night, especially in the desert. She had been to the Sand only a few times in her career, but she had heard many things about the desert at night—most especially it's freezing temperatures.

"We'll stop for now," she finally said, ten minutes later when the sky was the color of dying coals in a fire pit, and the sun was half obscured by the seemingly endless horizon.

Kiba and Akamaru stopped, both looking extremely morose. Kurenai frowned at that. She could understand Kiba, but why Akamaru?

"He's been following a weird scent that went with Naruto," said Akamaru, when she had inquired as they began to unpack to set up camp. "It's female, and smells almost like a dog, but not. I can't for the life of me remember what smell it is, but I've smelt it before." He grinned, and mussed Akamaru's head. "He's pretty excited about it, the little letch."

Of course, there was nothing little about Akamaru any more. He reached up past Kiba's waist in height, and was almost twice as long as the boy, and rippled with powerful muscles like some giant predator whenever he moved. Kiba had taken great care of him. The boy himself had changed as much as his dog; he was taller and far more sturdily built, and hair was now visible with no hood to obscure it. His face was sharper and manlier, he was quieter, and he had rid himself of much of his earlier immaturity. He still, of course, had a penchant for teasing and could return to his former volume at the drop of a hat.

"We'll reach the Sand by tomorrow, then?" said Shino, sitting upon his unfurled sleeping bag and turning to face Kurenai, though she could not say if he was looking at her or not, with his sunglasses. Kurenai could not honestly say how much Shino had changed, other than he had gotten taller. His body was so covered—with two jackets, one with a hood that covered his head and the other with a collar that went up to his nose—that only a scrap of flesh was visible near his eyes.

"Yes," she said.

"B-but Naruto-kun and the rest have already made it…" said Hinata looking towards the horizon. From what Kiba and Akamaru had gleaned, Team Seven had only stopped once, somewhere in the forest, just under a day ago. That meant that they had braved the desert at night, in all its danger, without stopping. Kurenai would expect something like that from Naruto, but it was indeed surprising that Kakashi and Sakura had been able to keep up, or had even dared to try it. "Shouldn't we c-continue on? We would b-be able to meet them there. What if they have already left?"

"They would have arrived today," said Kurenai, with a small shake of her head. "Don't worry, Hinata. We'll catch up. It's better to be safe than sorry; we want to be there to help fight rather than be exhausted and liabilities. They'll probably wait until tomorrow to start, anyways. And use this day to rest and find out as much as they can about the actual battle. As fast as we need to move, there's no sense in missing vital information to aid them."

Hinata nodded, seeing her teacher's point. She brushed some of her now long, flowing hair—which she had grown for the past two years on what Kurenai thought was but a whim—and went to tend to the fire that Kiba had done a messy job of building.

Kurenai watched her team take care of the necessary duties for setting up their camp. All of them were silent, only speaking to say "thanks," or "could you pass me that?". It was unusual for them, who were generally so full of life; Kiba would usually be blabbing to Hinata about something, while the girl nodded politely and smiled kindly at everything he said, sometimes giggling when he said or did something funny. Shino, who was almost always silent, still added a life to the group by interjecting sarcastic and deadpan comments into Kiba's stories, making the dog-loving boy glare or shout at him. Their silence, she knew, was probably a result of Naruto's return. Each of them was lost in their own thoughts about what they would do or say when they met with the blonde again.

She smiled. For the last two years, though he had been gone, Naruto had played a central role in the shaping of Kiba, Shino and Hinata's personalities and fighting styles. He had been their motivation, their reason to train harder and harder every day. She had to admit that many of the stories reported by the frog had been amazing, and she could see how they would be inspired to train harder. Naruto had done so much in that time—literally saving a world—and had likely gained so much experience from it that they were afraid he'd be so powerful that he'd just pass them by. So they each had trained harder, with every one of Naruto's messages, to become as strong as the boy. They had even taken cues from him, and had begun developing their own techniques in ninjutsu and taijutsu. On the whole, she was more than impressed.

And now that he had returned, they have a chance to show him everything that they had done.

But she also knew that while excited, they were worried.

None of them were quite sure how much Gaara had meant to Naruto, but from they way Tsunade had described it, the new Kazekage was very important to Naruto. The way Naruto and his team had rushed to the Sand was further evidence of this. And from what Tsunade had said, Naruto was just as important as Gaara in this mission. She had not given details, but Kurenai knew it was about the Kyuubi.

She glanced towards the horizon, painted with fire and a cold veil of night, which was slowly descending upon the land. She gave a small shiver, and hoped that this mission would not be the last her team had with Naruto.

* * *

"You did well, Kankuro—snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, one might say," Kakashi said, lifting a small patch of dark cloth in front of him, and examining it with a pleased eye.

"Thanks," muttered Kankuro, from where he lay on the bed.

Kakashi turned to his remaining team member. Naruto sat on a chair between the door and Temari, yawning. Sakura had disappeared two hours earlier, taking with her the poison and a Sand medic-nin to the greenhouses, so she could fashion an antidote. She had said she would likely return late, because she had a feeling that the poison itself was very complicated. She must have been right, because it was already nightfall and she had not returned. Mekkatorque too had left, saying that he had to speak with his comrades about their trip home.

"I'm not going to be going with you," he had told Naruto, earlier. "There is no point."

"Why the hell not?" Naruto had cried. "You're strong, so why—"

"But I'm not strong enough to aid you. That man proved it. I am strong, yes, but as time has shown, I am far past my prime. I could not stop Sicco and I could not stop that man from taking Gaara. Thus, there is no use for me to get in the way." Naruto again had tried to protest, but Mekkatorque had made it final.

"I will remain, of course, until you have returned Gaara. I will not abandon this place yet. I have offered instead to help increase the security of the Sand, and intend to do so to the greatest effect possible. And I have something for you, as well; that I hope will aid you in your mission. I must complete it tonight, and shall have it for you tomorrow. Think of it as a way for me to be there without making trouble for you. I so wish I could help Gaara in person, but as the results of the previous battle dictate, I am nothing but a liability." He had smiled sadly at Naruto.

"Dumb ass," Naruto had said, smacking the man on the head. "Where the hell is the gnome king that I fought beside in Gnomeregan! It's not like you to be such a weakling!"

"I am merely being practical," the gnome had said, a little offended. "And he has not gone anywhere. I just think—"

"No you didn't! You'd be much better off coming with us! And I bet Gaara would as well. You should—"

"I am sorry, Naruto," said Mekkatorque, with a finality. "But I know my limits. That man was stronger than I, and without my battle suit I would just become a piece of weaponry for them to use against you. I understand what you are trying to say, and I hate myself for it as well! For this alliance to work, I must take responsibility and lend aid to those who need it! But what aid can I give? I have seen the skills that you employ in battle, Naruto. If there are others who possess the same potential as you do, then I know I would not be able to match them. I have naught but my machines in battle, and I am not used to the sort of fights you and your people are. I am just not strong enough. The battle I witnessed before was a testament to that!" His eyes went soft, and he looked at Naruto with such despair that the blonde thought he might cry.

"I can only offer what help I can. I am sorry. I am an inventor, a ruler, but I am not a fighter proper. Please understand this. It is a shame to my people and myself that I cannot go with you to rescue Gaara, but I have no choice. I can only stay here, and make sure his city is protected.

"I am sorry."

Naruto had gone silent for a while after that, sitting moodily on the chair as he contemplated Mekkatorque's words. He had left a few times, presumably to find food, and upon returning the most recent time had seemed a bit better. Kakashi had said nothing of the conversation, the entire time he had been with the blonde. He silently agreed with the gnome, however. He decided that by the end, Naruto did too.

"So you're going to use Pakkun and your dogs to find the scent?" Naruto asked in the present, yawning.

"And Tsuwabuki, I'm hoping," said Kakashi, glancing at the fox that lay aside Naruto's chair, apparently asleep. "Is her nose good?"

"Better than Pakkun's, probably," Naruto said, with a slight smile. Tsuwabuki flickered her silvery tail and seemed to agree. Kakashi nodded.

"Okay," he said. There's no point in going anywhere else. We'll start tomorrow at first light, so try to get some sleep."

Naruto nodded. "I'll try." He had pushed back most of the worry that had been at the forefront of his mind for the past few days by talking with Kankuro and Temari, and did not look forwards to sleep. Sleep would bring dreams, and his current state of mind, likely nightmares.

Kakashi nodded. "Good."

Sakura meanwhile, yawned widely and stood to stretch from the rough, wooden chair she sat on. She was in the greenhouse, just behind the hospital, and was silently reveling in her ability. Before her on the desk were three small vials, each filled with a light blue liquid—it surprised her how such a pretty color could be derived from such a disgusting one, remembering what the poison had looked like. The desk was messy and covered in her quickly scrawled calculations, and she lamented that she had to clean up after herself. She looked towards the door, where the medic-nin, Aiko, stood dozing. He had been very patient with her, and had stayed the entire time, directing her to the herbs she had needed.

She sighed, and began to gather the papers together, as well as attempting to salvage what was left of the herbs. She gave the table a single wipe down with a damp cloth, and then gathered the three little vials full of antidote and slipped them into her weapon's pouch.

She turned to go, and came immediately face to face with a hunched, black form that stood not two feet in front of her.

She did not have time to give a yell, so she did what a proper shinobi would—she thrust her hand out, attempting to catch her stalker in the face and knock him back. However, the figure darted back, and snapped in a grouchy, old voice, "Stop, foolish girl!"

She did. "Who are…?" she began, before she was interrupted by a gasp from Aiko, who stood immediately to attention.

"Chiyo-baasama!" he cried. He immediately bowed to the shrunken woman before Sakura.

"I swear, how the mighty have fallen," Chiyo muttered, glancing coldly at the medic-nin. "Can't even hear an old woman hobbling a foot from him." She looked at Sakura, her eyes sweeping up and down her form. She thought she had recognized the name.

"You're from the _Chuunin Exam,"_ said Chiyo. "The one with the special, if extremely dangerous, technique."

Sakura gradually relaxed. "Ah…yes, I suppose. Who are you?"

"Chiyo," the woman said. "I thought I might find you here. Have you finished analyzing my grandson's poison?"

'_Grandson's…?'_ Sakura thought. "Yes. I've made several antidotes as well."

They had only been in the Sand for a few hours, and she had already created an antidote? Chiyo hid her surprise. It would not do to look foolish in front of the enemy. "I see. Then you have done my job for me." She turned. "Where is Kankuro? I have to see him. I also must speak with your team leader." She began to hobble away, leaving Sakura thoroughly confused, and unable to do much but follow.

"Um, excuse me, Chiyo-baasama; why do you need to see Kakashi-sensei?"

"If Kakashi is your leader, than that is because I wish to discuss the plan of action tomorrow. Perhaps you haven't heard. I'm going to be going with you and your team."

Sakura stopped. "What?" she asked, before her manners came back to her and she asked, "But why, ma'am?"

"Drop the 'ma'am', girl, I'm too old for such a thing. That title belongs to middle-aged mothers." She looked behind her. "Because the one who attacked Kankuro was my grandson. I haven't seen him in a while, so I'd though it best to pay him a visit before I kick the bucket. There is no more reason than that."

Sakura stared at the back of the woman as they walked. They had entered the main hallway of the hospital, and needed to be on the second floor, as that was where Kankuro's room was, and likely where Kakashi and Naruto would be. Chiyo seemed to know this, and pushed the stair door open, not bothering to stop and hold it for Sakura.

"Your grandson, then, made that poison?" Sakura asked.

"Yes."

"I almost didn't figure it out. It's utterly amazing how complicated it is. It's a derivative of scorpion venom, but it's clearly artificial because it causes intense pain and lasts a lot longer than scorpion venoms do. It's designed to cause pain, not to kill quickly."

"I am not surprised," said Chiyo. "Sasori doesn't care much for his victims, so he probably designed it in mind so once someone was poisoned, they'd be unable to do anything while he killed their comrades, or simply left them to inevitably die." She gave a cold snort and pushed the next door open violently, making Sakura jump from the bang it made.

"You're quite talented, girl. I should have supposed that, however, after hearing about the creation of that _jutsu_ of yours. I didn't think it was possible for such a technique to exist." Chiyo's words were hardly praising. She sounded as if she was spitting the same poison that Sakura had just found an antidote to.

Sakura reddened at the words, and said nothing more. It was obvious Chiyo did not want to talk to her. She only spoke next to tell Chiyo what room Kankuro was in, just as they passed it. Chiyo nodded and pushed the door open, walking into the room.

"You!" she suddenly screamed, seeing a shock of white hair and remembering all at once the man who had killed her son.

Kakashi spun, just barely missing a kunai in the gut. Chiyo, still clutching the gleaming knife, hissed and slashed at Kakashi again, only to be blocked this time—not by the _jounin_, but by a young blonde wielding a glowing short sword.

"Oi! What the hell's the big idea?" Naruto cried, shoving Chiyo back and holding _Magni's Pride _up in an offensive position, glaring at her.

"Chiyo-baasama!" both Kankuro and Temari cried. Temari stood straight up and Kankuro attempted to as well, but a sudden tremor sent him back into his pillow, gasping in pain.

Chiyo glared at Kakashi for a moment, and suddenly noticed the differences. He was clearly not Hatake Sakumo, with the lazy, glossy eye and the slouched forehead protector. Even the posture was different—more relaxed, even when ready to fight. She remembered also at that moment that Sakumo was long dead.

"You're not him," she said. "Forgive me. I was having a 'senior moment'." She had the grace to look embarrassed.

Kakashi relaxed. "No problem," he said.

"Who're you?" Naruto asked, glaring at the woman as he sheathed his sword.

"She's a medic-nin," said Sakura, before Chiyo could answer for herself. "She knows about Sasori."

"I should," Chiyo said, "seeing as I'm his grandmother."

Kakashi blinked. "Is that so?" He glanced at Kankuro. "I suppose that would also explain why you're here. Do you have information for us?"

"No, I've come to tell you I'm coming with you."

Temari and Kankuro gaped.

"You are?" Naruto asked, raising an eyebrow.

Chiyo glared at him. "Who might you be, brat? You've got quite the tongue to speak to your elders as such."

"You're the one who attacked my teacher, lady," Naruto said.

"And apologized."

"Sorry, then. Uzumaki Naruto," he said. "Gaara's friend."

Chiyo stared weirdly at the boy for a second, as if disbelieving that such a word existed where Gaara was concerned. She then shook her head, and turned to Kakashi.

"I have some business with my grandson, so I've opted to join you in your search. I'm surprised nobody has said anything to you."

"Nobody's been in all day," said Kakashi, with a shrug. "They've been busy with the Council, from what I've been told. We haven't moved, as there really is no point."

"You really intend to go, Chiyo-baasama? What about Ebizo-jiisama, is he going as well?" asked Temari.

"No," Chiyo said, thinking of her brother. "He's staying. There's only point in one of us going. He's not much of a fighter, anymore, either. I intend to deal with Sasori myself." She then frowned. "Why do you ask?"

Temari sighed, and jerked a hand over her shoulder. Lying sound asleep in one of the chairs was the old man from the pool. He was snoring loudly, and had tipped his little cap to cover his eyes.

Chiyo sweat dropped. "When did he get here?"

"About two hours ago," said Kankuro. "Looking for you."

"Hmph, moron, I had other things to do before I came here," she said, when in fact she had done the very same thing her brother was doing now.

"Ahh," said Kakashi, nodding. "If you're coming, then I suppose you should tell us all you can about Sasori."

"I haven't seen him, or even heard of him, in twenty years. All I can tell you since is that he's insane, and has an incredible talent for both poisons and puppets." She snorted. "Both of which you can tell from what information you have already, so in that regard, I'm essentially useless. But I'll know more when we get there. Do you have a way of tracking him?"

"Yes," said Kakashi, holding up a scrap of black cloth, and nodding in Tsuwabuki's direction. "The best tracking nose, according to Naruto."

"Nah," said Naruto, "according to her."

'**_And don't you forget it.'_**

"Fine then," said Chiyo. "Goodbye. You'd best be ready in the morning, for I have no doubt that Sasori has become terribly strong in the past two decades, and will take all of your power to defeat." She snorted, and turned around, barking at Ebizo to wake up and follow her.

"I can't believe I'm siding with Konoha-nin," she said, audibly to the rest of the group before she and the lethargic old man disappeared through the door.

"What a weird old lady," muttered Naruto. "What the hell's wrong with her?"

Temari watched the woman go. "A lot, Naruto. She's had a tough life." She took a shuddering breath. "We'd better get some rest. We'll be leaving in the morning."

"You're coming too?" asked Sakura, looking away from the door that Chiyo had just left through.

"If I can," said Temari. "For some reason I don't think Chiyo-baasama will let me. I think this means more to her than a lot in the past few years. She essentially dropped out of the politics and everything since…" She trailed off and lowered her eyes, confusing those who didn't know of what she spoke of (which amounted to all but Kankuro). "…Since around fifteen years ago. The Council has roped her into overseeing a few things since the Yondaime's death, such as the previous _Chuunin Exam, _but otherwise, she's remained strictly out of the Sand's affairs. She once played an incredible role in them, and was regarded as one of the most skilled fighters in the Sand." She glanced at Sakura. "She was a constant enemy of Tsunade-sama during the past War, due to the fact that Tsunade-sama would continually develop antidotes to her most powerful poisons." She sighed. "She's probably the best person for you to have."

"Let's hope so," said Kakashi, softly. "Everyone get some rest. It wouldn't do to nod off in the middle of a battle."

* * *

"So you're bringing those two, sister?"

"Yes. It will be some irony for him, won't it? It's time we brought the family back together."

"Be safe, Chiyo."

"Hmph. You should know that word can't be used for old codgers like us, brother. The time for safety has passed. Whatever happens now will happen, and I will do nothing to stop it. I only hope I die taking that fool with me."

* * *

Dawn came, and as the sun rose from its bed of darkness and earth, it saw Naruto, Tsuwabuki, Sakura, Kakashi and Chiyo at the gates of the Sand, a small crowd of people seeing them off.

Temari had guessed correctly. No sooner than she had announced her intentions to go along did Chiyo tell her to stay put.

"You'll need to defend this place from the foreigners," she had said, glancing at Mekkatorque as she said this. She was not particularly shocked by the news of the Alliance, but then again, she didn't particularly care. She was far too old to be surprised by the emergence of another world, and far too disinterested in politics to bother about the consequences of the Alliance. She had been briefly introduced to Mekkatorque on the way to the gate, and found the old gnome an agreeable fellow whom she could tolerate. She didn't seem to notice, or even care, about his non-humanity, a fact that Mekkatorque found delightful.

At the entrance, Temari walked up to Naruto, and echoed the words that Kankuro had told him that morning.

"Bring back my brother, Naruto. Promise me."

Naruto smiled at her, and thrust out a thumb, upturned.

"It's a promise," Naruto said.

* * *

"_Intruders."_

"**Two teams from Konoha, coming from the Sand. The Kyuubi boy is among them, as is an old woman, a man with white hair, and woman with red eyes, and several little Leaf brats."**

The shadow with grey eyes snorted. "It doesn't matter. We'll just send somebody to stop them. I have a _jutsu_ perfect for it, if Sasori will lend me the use of his subordinates, which have no use anymore."

"Fine," the puppeteer said, dispassionately.

"If it's the _jutsu_ I think you're thinking of, can I go? I've been wanting to work off some—"

"No. I won't be using that one, it's too revealing. I can't risk more of you being exposed to Konoha so early on. I'll be using a much better _jutsu_ for this situation. Don't worry, you'll get your chance."

"Dammit."

"We still have a day to go. We can't afford to be interrupted."

"Then do it. They sicken me, anyways, the fools."

* * *

They made hardly a sound as they flew through the forest, leaping from tree to tree, or when no trees existed, bounding through clearings and leaping off the surfaces of rivers and ponds. They had been traveling all day, following the trail Tsuwabuki, Pakkun, Akamaru, and even Kiba, could smell from a mile away. Kiba could only describe it as a moldy, coppery smell, like a waterlogged tree drenched in years of blood. But as they traveled, it got stronger and the trail became clearer. It would end, Kakashi felt, somewhere in the River Country; it was a small region of land, so sparsely populated that it really had no business being called a country at all. It was mostly just forest, but got its name from the seven rivers that flowed through it, at points even crossing each other, and even at one point merging to form a single larger river as it flowed out of the country. It was a very beautiful place, they noted as they crossed it.

But most of them were far too focused to care for the scenery.

The meeting between the two teams had been quick and in a way, anticlimactic for those who had been hoping for more. They had met halfway across the desert, when Kiba had caught a fresh scent that had led them right to Team Seven, plus their tagalong. Reintroductions had needed to be short; yet though they had only seen each other and spoken a few words of greeting, none of them felt cheated.

Naruto was more than glad to see his friends. He was ecstatic. He was bordering euphoric, for but a moment. He had been waiting to for quite a while to catch any hint of them, and now that he had seen them, he had been allowed a brief moment of joy and relief. They had all shared a moment of humor, as well, when Akamaru found out that Tsuwabuki was a fox—even as they traveled, he would still whimper with regret every time the vixen caught his eye. Kiba would have a field day when the mission was over in teasing his partner.

When that was over, and knowing that they would be by his side for the remainder of the mission, he had reassumed his determined mind, and had told everyone that they had to hurry. Kiba's wide, dog-like grin had faded and he had nodded seriously; Shino had nodded, his face undecipherable; and Hinata's blushing face had immediately cleared, and Naruto saw the face that had fought Neji during the _Chuunin Exams_. They had left, but even so since then, a small piece of Naruto continued to celebrate every time Hinata, Shino, Kiba or even Kurenai crossed into his field of vision; and if he caught their eye, he would grin and nod, and get either similar action (from Kiba), an unknown action (from Shino), or a slight embarrassed action (from Hinata).

It was a few hours before dusk when Tsuwabuki, Akamaru, and Pakkun shouted back to their respective owners, that they smelt something ahead.

"A man," mumbled Pakkun. They had stopped in the middle of the forest, yards away from the edge of a clearing. Hinata took a deep breath, and with a final deep breath, activated her _Byakugan_—her eyes became severe and completely white, veins throbbed at the sides, and she could suddenly see the world.

"It is a man," she said, softly. "He is wearing a Sand-forehead protector, with a line through it, and a cloak made of black and red."

Chiyo's heart thumped. '_Sasori…'_ she thought. '_So you've come to greet your old grandma, hmm?'_

Kakashi glanced at the old woman. "Yours?"

"We won't know until we go," she said, roughly. "It is one man—unless those noses and that bloodline are lying, of course." She began to walk forwards with great, determined strides, her eyes narrowed towards the clearing. Kakashi told Kurenai with a look to stay put and wait for a signal. There was no point in all of them being revealed. Kurenai gave a soft nod, and gestured to her team to move back, and stay hidden. When Kakashi glanced back, they were gone.

Chiyo stepped into the clearing. The ground was leafless and brown, and the area was covered by foliage—the sky was not visible. It was like a small bubble in the midst of the forest, surrounded by everything but containing none of it.

In the middle stood a man. A man that Chiyo instantly knew was not Sasori. However, she was shocked to see him there, standing and staring at her and Team Seven with small, placid, emotionless eyes.

"You…" she muttered, narrowing her eyes.

The man stepped forwards. "Chiyo-baasama…? Why are you here?"

"Perhaps you could answer me the same thing…

"Yura."

* * *

Done.

Yes. I know it sucks. I know that if you've read the manga, you've probably read this chapter. I'm sorry. It will get better the next two chapters. I promise. Really, I do. I'm sorry to torture you with this.

But I still think we need to have a little chat.

Now, I have not complained for a while about this. I had no need to. You guys, despite me not getting the most reviews in the world, were telling me that I was doing a good job, or a bad job, and so I've born with it for a while. But I've found that in recent chapters (excluding the first, of course, which was monumental and I've never gotten that many reviews in a chapter—good job, guys!) I've received very few reviews.

So few, that I'm wondering if you guys are happy with this story.

Don't get worried. I'm not a dumbass who'd stop a story because of reviews. I'm going to continue, but I'd like to have at least _some_ feedback. It'd be nice if you guys could, even with a word or two, tell me if the chapter or the entire story is up to snuff, or if you're feeling particularly generous, what I can do to make it better.

That's what I want to do…make this story better, so you guys enjoy it more.

That said. Sorry about that. I've just been wondering about it for a while, and felt I had to get it off my chest…sorry. I hope that didn't offend anybody (though I don't know why it would), and I hope you guys aren't disappointed in my review grobbling. I honestly thought I'd gotten it out of my system. It seems I haven't, so this is probably the last one. SORRY!

Now that that's over, here's the scoop—I'll be taking my first ever college exams in two weeks, so that means that once I get back to school, I'll have a lot of studying to do. That doesn't mean I won't have time for this story, but I'm letting you know that the next chapter might be a little late. I'll make it up to you after exams, when I have two more weeks free to do whatever I want.

So until then, hope you guys enjoy New Year's! Drink a bottle of champagne for me (unless you prefer cider, of course)!

Seeya next week, hopefully

General Grievous

* * *

Clap hands.

-Noz


	6. Akasuna no Sasori: My Works

**Disclaimer: Thou Shalt Not Own Naruto or World of Warcraft. Cause neither do I.**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Chiyo spat in front of Yura, her eyes glittering dangerously. "I knew there had to be a traitor—I just didn't think it'd be someone as apparently loyal as you. I suppose it was you who prevented the alarms from being raised when Gaara was attacked?" 

The man gave a soft nod. "Yes." His eyes flickered back to Naruto, Kakashi, and Sakura. Naruto stood at the forefront of the group, his eyes smoldering with rage at the Sand _jounin_. The boy's fists were clenched and it looked for a moment that he wouldn't let the man continue standing so calmly in front of him; his arms twitched occasionally, as if he were about to suddenly grab for his weapon and rush at the man.

How dare he!

The moment the small word left Yura's burnished bronze lips, a hot fire had leapt up in Naruto's stomach. The baleful fury traveled up Naruto's body into his chest, seizing his heart and making it pump and rage with Naruto's labored, furious breaths. This man had the gall to simply admit it like that? What was wrong with him? He glared at the man with eyes that could have melted steel, noticing that Yura's expression never changed. The man obviously noticed Naruto's rage, for it was hard not to—the air burned with it, as if a hidden inferno had arisen around Naruto, blowing searing air in all directions, and Naruto's breaths were the most audible sound in the pristine silence of the clearing. However, Yura did not glare back, did not cower, nor did he smile triumphantly. He just stared back, as if curious, as if he couldn't possibly conceive of why Naruto had contorted his face so. As if the anger Naruto was showing to him was a foreign language.

Chiyo noticed this, and frowned. This man—he was Yura, no doubt, but he did not act like it. She had met Yura several times in her life, mostly when she had been forced to accompany her brother (who's heart was far too soft, and accepted just about any request that was made to him) to Council meetings. The man had been polite, knowledgeable, and above all loyal to a fault to the Sand. He had been one of Gaara's biggest supporters, when the young man became Kazekage. It was his loyalty, too, that had made Gaara appoint him as an advisor, only second to Baki.

So why did he now stand here?

"Hmph," said Chiyo. "You never seemed like the type who'd betray our village, Yura."

The man shrugged. "I couldn't say. That doesn't really matter, however, at this point? I have been ordered by my master to prevent you from going any further. That I will do, and nothing more." He lowered himself into a solid fighting stance, narrowing his profile but not lifting a finger to attack or prepare otherwise for offense. Rather, his movement seemed less a preparation, and more a signal.

Or at least that was what Kakashi felt; a mere second before a kunai flew past his ear close enough for him to feel the ringing steel on his skin and the light fluttering of an explosive note as it whipped in the air behind the deadly triangular knife. It thudded into the ground a foot in front of the _jounin_, right behind Naruto, who had turned at the gasp from Sakura. Upon seeing it, all four of the team stared at the kunai and the glowing note, which was rapidly approaching the point where it would detonate, for a second which all felt still allowed them to memorize every slight detail of the deadly weapon; but a mere second later, they leapt with shinobi grace and speed away from it, just as the explosive note reached its end, and filled the air with a thundering boom and a flash of yellow light.

'_Another one…!'_ Kakashi thought.

At that moment Yura reacted. The former Sand-nin shot forwards with surprising speed, pulling a kunai from within his cloak and slashing at Chiyo, who had leapt closest to him. The old woman dodged back, lifting a dagger of her own to parry.

Her eyes widened, however, when Yura's blade passed through her own as if it weren't there, slicing it in two. Yura thrust his shoulder into her using the same built up force of his charge, and it struck Chiyo so hard that she was momentarily bereaved of breath. The force of the hit flung her backwards across the clearing, though despite her age she managed to recover sufficiently to land on her feet. She spat once again, noticing the red tinge to it this time. '_Such strength!'_ she thought.

Kakashi, as this happened, twisted in the direction the kunai had flown from—he caught for the briefest of moments a figure, dressed in the very same way as Yura, ducking away behind a tree. He raised a hand—and a second later there was a rustling within the trees, and the figure emerged again for a mere moment before vanishing into the forest. The once hidden presence of four others followed, made known by a low growl that echoed within the trees.

Kurenai's team would handle it. But it still posed the question: how had he avoided their and Tsuwabuki's attention? And how had Hinata's _Byakugan_ missed him?

Yura, after ejecting Chiyo from his range, twisted at the sight of a silver blur—Tsuwabuki darting across the ground towards him, teeth bared. He raised his blade, preparing to meet her attack, but she suddenly stopped.

From where he now stood, Naruto began a string of hand seals.

'_Yajuu Dogou!'_

Tsuwabuki puffed out her chest and bucked her head back for a single instant before bellowing out a sound greater than any roar Yura had heard—a sound of thunder that seemed so unnatural and artificial that it couldn't have possibly been ejected by a mere fox. It came in the form of a massive surge of wind, which struck the Sand-nin violently, lifting him with ease and blasting him away with the ferocious speed of a flying arrow. Yura slammed into the wall of trees, which were uprooted and shredded to pieces by the vixen's voice, and disappeared in an explosion of dust and greenery.

While everything settled for a moment, and the air went silent and still, Chiyo glanced over at Naruto—though the boy's face registered a slight gleam of triumph, it was still set in a fierce, unblinking glare at the pile of rubble. His fox partner, which had loped to his side, seemed to show a similar look. She was nonetheless amazed—it was an impressive technique, and to be able to give _chakra_ with such ease to a bonded creature at such a distance…usually one had to be within a foot or two for such a thing to be possible. It either meant that Naruto's _chakra _control was better than she had guessed, or that the strength of their bond was very impressive. She felt it the latter.

Sakura smiled at Naruto's success, but kept her eyes focused on the ruined trees—there was something odd that she didn't quite understand yet. Her eyes caught the glint of Chiyo's ruined _kunai_ a little ways away from where she stood. How did he do that? She wasn't positive, but she was sure that no such strength enhancement techniques—medical or otherwise—existed in the Sand. It meant that either Yura had kept it a secret, much like his betrayal, or Akatsuki had outfitted him with it. She too, felt it the latter.

Kakashi moved swiftly beside Chiyo. "You all right?"

"I'll live," she said, with a snort as she rubbed her wounded ribs. She was quite sure at least one of them had broken, but did not think of it. The battle, she felt, had yet to end.

From within the trees, there was a sudden movement—a dark blur emerged from the pile, flinging itself straight at Naruto and Tsuwabuki. Yura, his cloak ripped and a pair of bruises on his cheek and forehead, ran at Naruto, lifting a _kunai_. Naruto freed his sword, bringing it up to meet the glittering knife, and when it struck there was a ringing crash of steel that nearly destroyed Tsuwabuki's sensitive ears. Yura's knife hit with such force that had it struck something of equal strength to it, both weapons would have shattered, and his opponent would have been flung back or had his arm broken. But Naruto's sword was special—instead of doing both, only Yura's weapon shattered, while Naruto stood firm and unmoving.

A second later Naruto retaliated—he swiped his weapon forwards and slapped Yura in the cheek with the flat of the blade, and with it traveled back the kinetic energy that had gone into Naruto's blade from the Sand-nin's previous strike. That was the second talent of _Magni's Pride_—not only would it defend any hit, but any force that struck it would be absorbed (as energy could not be destroyed) and if possible, redirected. It was a trick Naruto had discovered in his weeks of training at Stormwind. As it stood, the force of Yura's hit—which before would have been enough to turn stone to dust, slammed back into its maker's face.

With a hideous cracking sound, Yura spun, his neck twisting so much that he looked nearly to the front again, when it had finished. His body flew back a few feet and landed like a sodden sack of grain on the ground. After a final, violent spasm, he stopped moving altogether.

Kakashi gazed this time with amazement at his student. For once, instead of wasting his _chakra_ and attacking his opponent in such a direct way, Naruto had won simply by a deft use of his weapon. No fancy _jutsu_, and he had done it with the effortlessness, and ruthlessness, of a proper shinobi.

And he didn't quite know how he felt about that.

Sakura walked steadily towards Naruto. She too was amazed; she glanced at the blonde's face, and found it had softened slightly.

"Naruto?" she asked, softly.

Naruto blinked, and turned to her. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

The blonde gave a small nod. "Yeah." He glanced back at Yura's lifeless form for a moment longer. He then abruptly turned and looked at Kakashi. Both his friend and former teacher felt relief when they saw the determination they knew well back in his eyes.

"Let's go! We gotta go find Kurenai-sensei and the others, and get back to finding—"

He stopped at the same moment Kakashi's exposed eye grew as big as a dinner plate, at Sakura recoiled in horror. Chiyo merely stared passively at the scene, her age mostly numbing her to such surprises—though she could not stop her mouth from dropping open slightly as she witnessed it.

Yura was standing.

The Sand-nin gazed with the same impassive, almost lifeless eyes at the team from Konoha, as he slowly twisted his neck back around to the position it was supposed to be in. There was another crack when he finally righted it, and he held it for a moment as the black and blue bruises on his neck began to fade, and within his vertebrae realigned and repaired themselves.

"…The hell was that!" Naruto cried, leaping away from the revived Yura. Sakura and Tsuwabuki joined him a moment later, while Kakashi and Chiyo remained where they stood behind Yura.

"What on earth…?" whispered Sakura.

"I'm guessing that's no _kekkai genkai_?_" _muttered Kakashi, looking to the old woman at his side.

"No," Chiyo muttered, her eyes narrowing.

His head now fully stable, Yura gave no more warning when he charged—not at Naruto, but Sakura.

* * *

The black-cloaked shinobi was fast. He glided through the trees as if he belonged among them, so swift that even Kiba and Akamaru were having trouble keeping up. 

'_He's trying to draw us away…'_ Kurenai thought. It meant that he was merely trying to distract them long enough for his partner to finish the other team off, or he intended to find a place that suited him better and fight them there. '_And that power earlier…'_

Eventually, the figure leapt from the trees and landed in a much smaller clearing, near the very edge of the forest they were in. Beyond it lay an expansive field filled with tall, green grass, and few trees. It was already late in the day, so the shadows of the mighty trees behind them flooded the field, as did the burning orange from the distant, almost setting sun. The man turned immediately to face them, exposing his face—it was a young man, with short spiky brown hair and dull blue eyes. He wore no visible forehead protector.

But when Kurenai's group emerged from the trees as well, he raised his hands to make a seal. Hinata tensed, leaping to the front of the group, ready to use the _Kaiten_ technique of her clan to defend her teammate from whatever attack he might be preparing.

But he did not attack.

Instead, he began to disappear—his body seemed to meld into the shadows he stood upon, fading until he became transparent, and then vanished entirely. Hinata's Byakugan immediately flared to life—but she could not see him.

"What the hell?" snarled Kiba. "His scent's gone again! Where'd he go?" Akamaru howled in agreement, his teeth gnashing and his tail upright and rigid.

"I can't see him," whispered Hinata, frowning. She did not relax from her stance—before the man had appeared as if from nowhere, attacking Naruto-kun and his teammates. That meant that whatever ability this was could fool both her eyes and Kiba's nose. He would not simply run away after leading them so far, either.

'_What power is this?'_ thought Kurenai. '_A _kekkai genkai_?"_

"Shino," said Kiba, turning immediately to the quiet boy, who stared forwards into the gleaming light of the field, the sunlight turning his glasses into twin suns. "Did you—"

Shino gave the barest of nods. He lifted a hand and pulled his collar down, as if planning to speak. Instead he looked immediately to the side, sucked in a small breath, and suddenly blew out. From his mouth a black blur—a frightfully deadly insect, a variant of his _kikaichu_—sped like a bullet, striking something unseen in the middle of the air. There was a grunt, and a moment later the Akatsuki member emerged, falling back and clutching a newly formed wound in which the bug had made its home on his chest. His eyes were slightly widened—though in pain or surprise it was hard to tell. He staggered back and coughed, splashing his lips and chin with blood.

"He never left…" said Shino, calmly.

Ignoring his pain, the man drew a trio of _kunai_ from the folds of his cloak, and threw them at Shino, Kiba and Kurenai. Shino merely dodged to the side, Kiba ducked beneath his, while Kurenai deflected hers with one of her own. At that same moment the man rushed at Hinata, who was closest. His eyes suddenly flashed green and he made a grab at her head—but Hinata was faster. Not bothering to leap back, the girl met the man's charge and slammed a palm into the middle of his stomach. An explosion of pain seared through his abdomen, stunning him, and allowing Hinata to follow up with a cry as she laid into him with dozens of swift and glancing blows coupled with bursts of her own _chakra_.

'_Hakke Rokujyon Sho!'_

The man flew back, spitting more blood, whatever technique he might have been trying to perform lost along with his ability to use _chakra_. He landed roughly upon the ground, a few yards away, and lay still.

"Nice, Hinata!" said Kiba, with a grin in his teammate's direction.

Kurenai slowly walked towards the man, her eyes narrowed. He lay unmoving, but she had seen such a trick before. She readied a knife, and stood, waiting.

A moment passed.

Kurenai suddenly launched herself backwards, throwing the _kunai_ straight at the man's heart. But with her sudden movement, the man rolled to the side, avoiding the dagger and then leaping to his feet. His eyes suddenly flared wide, and the whites bled red. His body began to shake and his face contorted into a furious glare. He snarled like a wild animal and launched himself at Kurenai, his hands rising up into ferocious claws and his teeth bared. He moved with frightening speed and if Kiba and Akamaru had not moved before that, he might've reached her.

'_Gatsuuga!'_

A whirling mass of claws, fur and cloth slammed into the man's chest, shredding his cloak and clawing away layers of skin. As the man soared back, Kiba separated from Akamaru's large body and kicked off the dog's back. He flew straight at the man, grabbing onto his ruined cloak with both hands and then roaring into his face like a feral hound. He discharged a burst of _chakra_ from his body, willing it to spin, and then slammed the man into the ground with all his might. The combined spinning and strength drove the man through a layer of soft soil and into a large boulder beneath, which shattered in tandem with the man's spine.

The man gave a final gargling cry, a fountain of blood gushing from his mouth, before what life was left in his body flew from it.

Kiba wrenched his claws free and jumped away. Kurenai and his teammates immediately rushed to join him, while he sneered in triumph and the fallen man for a moment, willing him to rise again.

"Bastard!" he snapped at the corpse.

"Good job," Kurenai whispered, nodding at the boy. She stepped past him, and gazed into the small crater in which the man lay, broken and bloody from a combination of her student's attacks.

But the man was no longer there.

She recoiled in disgust, wrinkling her nose as a foul scent struck her attention, and widening her eyes in amazement at the sight. The man's body had decayed—rotted to a point where it looked years dead. Its eyes had rotted out and its blood had congealed where it was, becoming dark brown stains on its leathery lips and around its body; all that remained of it was a dry husk covering a malformed, broken skeleton.

"W-what the hell?" whispered Kiba, stepping back.

"Let's go," said Kurenai, turning away from the cadaver. "We can do nothing, now—it's likely some sort of safety measure; whatever techniques this man had, Akatsuki did not want them to be revealed. Let's return to Team Seven—hopefully they will have sorted out their own opponent, as well."

Her team nodded, turning their backs on the corpse and following back into the trees.

A moment later, the ground shifted, and a pair of eyes, white as milk, rose from the tall grass.

"_One down."_

"**Hmph, let's remove him quickly."**

* * *

Yura's fist tore into the dry earth beneath Sakura's feet, nearly pulverizing the young girl with it. Sakura leapt just out of the man's range, taking only a second to marvel at his strength—but also noticing that it was just that—strength. It was nothing like the power she had learned from Tsunade, and thus she knew it would be nowhere near as dangerous. To prove her point, she stomped the ground, releasing a burst of tightly bound _chakra _that released like a shotgun blast beneath her, creating a shockwave that knocked Yura off balance. 

Kakashi tore forwards, drawing a _kunai _and throwing it at the man's head. Yura immediately ducked, and threw his hands into a seal as he did. For a moment, Sakura was caught in a moment of frightening tension, knowing she should attack and yet unable to, for fear of falling straight into his technique. In this moment, Kakashi and Naruto and crossed the distance to Yura and this is when he finally released his attack.

'_Jinshuteki Genkai: Kijutsu Honryuu!'_

Yura's eyes flashed green—and suddenly his body exploded into a torrent of bluish-green _chakra_, startling his attackers into stopping. The blue-green light swirled in every direction around Yura, licking them with its warm, tingling power—but at the same time, all three of them felt an immense exhaustion fall over them, as if they had just been fighting for hours on end. It lasted only for a moment, and then both the feeling and light were gone. Yura turned swiftly and swung a punch at Kakashi's head, prompting the man to dodge. Sakura took this time to rush forwards, and before Yura could move to counterattack, she hauled off and punched him in the ribs as hard as she could.

And Yura barely moved. Instead of flying backwards from the strength of her punch, he looked as if any physically fit fifteen year old girl had struck him, not the student of Tsunade-hime, whose strength was legendary. Yura merely doubled over in pain for a scant second before pulling up and smacking Sakura across the face—she was thrown back four yards and landed roughly on her feet, stumbling and nearly falling.

'_What…?'_ she thought, staring at her arm while she wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth, '_How did…?'_ Her strength, she suddenly realized, had not vanished, but had simply been unable to be released from her body. Whatever the man had done, it had removed her ability to expel _chakra_ from her body—the same _chakra_ that was the source of her monstrous strength.

Kakashi noticed her distress and what had occurred before, and tried to produce a small burst of chakra from his fingers—and found he could not.

'_A chakra inhibitor,'_ he thought, looking towards Yura. '_He forcefully closed all of our tenketsu for a moment, using that technique.'_

Yura twisted around, ready to face Kakashi—but then a strange look crossed his face, and he stopped. He suddenly changed his mind, and a moment later Yura was rushing at the only member who hadn't been hit with his technique—Chiyo.

Tsuwabuki moved to intercept. She snarled at the man, suddenly blurring lashing out with claws and teeth at his midsection. He grunted as the fox slammed into him, but he did not move—instead, he grabbed her by the neck and lifted her with great ease, spinning and hurtling her back towards Kakashi and Sakura. Yura barely missed a step before he had continued his movement towards Chiyo.

The old woman growled and thrust a hand out. It looked for a moment like she had done nothing, but a second later Yura stopped mid-run, as if time had frozen for him.

"Now, dammit!" she snarled to her temporary teammates. "I can't hold him for long! He's strong!"

"Naruto! No _chakra_! Use only weapons!"

Naruto heard his sensei's cry from behind him as he ran. He reached Yura with but a second to spare, unable to use his _Kazaashi_ technique. With a cry he hammered a _kunai_ into Yura's back, and then immediately jumped away, while the man stumbled forwards in pain and surprise.

"Oi! Old lady! Get away, there's a bomb!" Naruto shouted. Chiyo backpedaled with surprising speed and ferocity for a woman her age.

All the while, she gazed into Yura's slightly glazed eyes.

"He's waiting for you, Chiyo-baasan…Sasori-sama is waiting for you…" he said, ever so soft—she did not even hear him, only saw his lips, and saw the familiar movements of her grandson's name, which had been on everyone's when he had first left.

And then Yura smiled; and died when the explosive note attached to the _kunai_ in his back detonated.

"What the hell…?" Naruto muttered, when the dust had settled. He glanced at a stunned Chiyo through the smoke streaming from Yura's remains. "What the hell was that guy?"

'**_He smelt strange,'_ **muttered Tsuwabuki. '**_Like a man, but not. I thought I smelt troll, and perhaps some orc, and an even stranger scent—like a night elf, but not.' _**It had disturbed the fox considerably to smell such familiar scents in such close proximity, when none of the sources could have possibly been present. She looked up at her partner, who looked down at her with confusion.

What did that mean?

The old woman glanced up at Naruto, her eyes narrowed and her face scrunched to look more like a large, white raisin with her powerful frown. She did not, truthfully, have an answer for the boy. She just shook her head, and walked around the smoking crater.

"That earlier technique sealed our _chakra_," muttered Kakashi, when they had rejoined. "It seems to have worn off by now, however." He glanced at Sakura. "You alright?"

The girl nodded, retracting a healing palm from her cheek, where she had been struck earlier. She was frowning, her large forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Why did he do that?"

"Do what?" asked Naruto.

"Attack us. Was it some sort of _jutsu_ that forced him to do all of it; I remember Gaara telling me that he was one of the most loyal Sand-nin—and you seemed to have thought the same," she said, glancing at Chiyo.

"He was. I believe Sasori did something—perhaps developed a mind-control _jutsu_. It would suit his personality well." She spat the poisonous words from her mouth, and gave a final glare in Yura's general direction, for it was difficult to know where exactly the majority of his body now rested. "There is no other reason I can think of why he would betray us. It didn't even seem to be a surface compliance—it was as if he changed his very emotions and feelings and attitudes. If that is so then he has become even more powerful than I can imagine."

Kakashi nodded, and seemed about to speak, when the bushes at the far end of the clearing rustled and Team Eight shuffled out. All of them appeared uninjured, but they seemed as confused as Team Seven and Chiyo.

"Let's go," said Kakashi, finally. "We'll travel as far as we can tonight, and stop to rest when it gets dark."

"I would disagree," mumbled Chiyo, it would be better if we continue to travel and attempt to reach their headquarters before dawn. Those two were not placed here to try and kill us. They were placed here as a distraction." She looked at all of them, her frown ever darkening. "I think they have already begun the extraction process."

"What?" Naruto asked, stepping towards her.

"The goal of Akatsuki, according to Jiraiya and furthered by their capturing of Gaara, is most certainly to extract the _bijuu_ from his body. They intend, I believe, to use it to create a new _jinchuuriki_. By doing that, they will be able to use the monstrous power that it contains, making them infinitely more dangerous than before. That is partly why we must go as fast as possible."

Sakura frowned, she opened her mouth and readied to ask the woman what she meant by "partly," but Kakashi spoke first.

"Then we'll travel until we reach the headquarters," he said.

Kurenai glanced at him. "Is that wise? How long do we have until this extraction process is complete?" She looked at Chiyo for this.

"It depends," the woman said. "I do not know exactly the _jutsu_ they have planned to use. It might be something they manufactured themselves, as they are all no doubt extremely powerful shinobi. But an enormous amount of chakra must be removed from Gaara. Though he is technically the weakest of the nine, Shukaku the _Ichibi_ possesses the _chakra_ equivalent of several hundred A-Class shinobi. Therefore, it will take some time for them to draw it all out, and that is why we must move quickly. My guess is two days at the least—and they will have begun, no doubt, before we even left. Our only evidence for their continuation was those _kunai_ fodder they sent at us."

Kakashi softly nodded, "But there's no sense in rushing in. We'll wait and plan out our attack from there."

"Fine!" Naruto suddenly ejected, his body tensed and his eyes turned towards the edge of the forest, where Tsuwabuki stood in anticipation with Akamaru. "Let's just go!" From Chiyo's words sprang a new worry that Naruto couldn't quite explain. He just knew now that they had to reach Gaara as fast as possible. Faster, even. They needed to go, they needed to save him.

Kakashi nodded, and they left the clearing. He strayed behind his students and their friends, and slid back to Chiyo, whispering into her ear as did.

"Tonight, you'll tell us the full story, I hope."

Chiyo narrowed her eyes at the man, but nodded slightly anyways.

"Fine."

* * *

"**Both distractions are dead."**

"_They will reach current position at two hours past midnight at their current rate of movement."_

"They hardly offered a distraction at all…yeah," said Deidara.

"They served their purpose well enough. _Kongoubutsu no jutsu_ only works well for those whose bodies can take it. Your Sand-nin, Sasori, was rather receptive to the ability," the commanding voice said, the words dripping like molten gold. "It's rare that someone can be infused with so many foreign cells and attain powers not their own for so long, without the degenerative effects. He even was able to regenerate a few times, and retained his strength until the end."

"Does it really matter? That toy is broken; it's ceased to be interesting. I am more interested in the group that may be coming here. The Kyuubi _jinchuuriki _is among them, you said, Zetsu?"

"_Yes,"_ the metronomic voice said.

"Then that one will be mine. The Kyuubi is the strongest of all the _bijuu_, and one of the most difficult to attain. If we capture it now, when it's away from that damned village, it will be easier, won't it?"

"Yes," the leading voice said. "Then he's yours. Just don't get yourself killed, Sasori—you have yet to play your true purpose in this organization, and your other mission is just as important."

"I don't plan to. He won't be difficult. Which one is he?"

"_Blonde."_

"**Has a damn loud mouth and carries a dwarf sword."**

"Don't underestimate him. He defeated the Broodmother, and trained under Jiraiya-sama for a time," said a soft, controlled voice.

"I won't fail, Itachi, unlike you. Even if there was a _Sennin _with him this time, I wouldn't."

"Now, now Sasori-danna," said Deidara, smirking at his partner across the room. "Itachi-san did his best…yeah."

"Shut up," the leading voice said. "Continue the extraction, it's almost complete."

In the writhing mass of white below them, Gaara remained—and still he screamed. And strangely, he felt a growing heaviness in his eyes, slowly building up with each agonizing second. The pain was slowly disappearing. It would be gone soon.

Soon, he'd be able to rest.

Alone.

As he had always been destined to.

* * *

The stopped to rest a scant few hours before dawn, at the top of a ridge that led into a small, pristine valley. Kakashi knew they had entered the River Country from the sudden change in flora and fauna. The trees were rich and beautiful and tall—each one they passed flowed with inner life and vigor, so green that they made emeralds pale in comparison. Compared to the previous area, which were mostly a mix of light green shrubs, bushes and short desert plants, due to the close proximity of the Wind Country; and short, stumpy conifers that despite giving enormous covering were unimpressive in appearance and possessed a fraction of the life the River Country did. The animals were far more frequently encountered—deer, all manner of songbirds, and small mammals whose presence was just barely known by the shifting of the many shrubs that formed a second canopy over the ground. 

The most obvious thing Kakashi could see about the area was its potential for hiding. It was not a large country, but it was so vastly unpopulated that there were hundreds of places to have a hideout. Given also Akatsuki's extensive abilities and apparently low membership, it would be a perfect place.

The ridge they stopped upon looked over a rather large waterfall and the pool it flowed into. It lay just below them, a place that looked so unassuming that had he a girlfriend, Kakashi would have brought her there. It was calm and beautiful and had he not known the truth of the place, he would have thought it relaxing. But he could not, for that was where, he knew, Akatsuki had made their hideout. Tsuwabuki, Pakkun and Kiba had all agreed on the location. Though the water did mask their smell, the trail ended by the water. Hinata had then used her _Byakugan_ to discover the location of the door behind the waterfall, and the seal upon it. From there, they had returned to the ridge, and made camp.

"So," Kakashi began, glancing away from the fire he had just built. "Chiyo-baasama, might you tell us now what you truly know about this situation? I do not feel comfortable continuing this mission until all of the facts have been laid out. You know enough about the technique they plan, or have already used, on Gaara. Why?"

While the rest of the team glanced at the man in confusion, Chiyo stared into the fire, her eyes slightly glazed.

"Because," she said, distantly, "it is essentially the reverse process to what I used, when I sealed the demon Shukaku into Gaara's unborn body."

Naruto stiffened, staring at the women with suddenly wide eyes. She did not meet his eyes, or even glance in his direction, solely focusing on Kakashi.

"Fifteen years ago, the Fourth asked me to create a weapon for the Sand to use against our enemies. He cited the Leaf specifically—no doubt because he knew of my enmity for it, but also because before asking me he said that they themselves had gained control of one of the _bijuu_. He wanted a counter to it, and Shukaku had always been ours to control. I had no qualms. I detested the Leaf, and all other countries. I thought it would be my final mark upon the village, to protect it. It would be my final mission. I had no wishes, though I had lost everything, to die at that point, however. Therefore, I used a complicated seal on the vessel of his choice—his own son, still in his mother's womb."

"So originally," muttered Kurenai, "Gaara was to be used as a weapon against the Kyuubi." She glanced sideways at Naruto, who was staring into the fire as if he had seen it for the first time.

"Among others," muttered Chiyo. "From the very beginning, shinobi have attempted to harness the power of the _bijuu_. To do that, they needed to create a vessel, and there is no better one than a child of their own village. It is the perfect weapon—one they can mold to become more powerful than all the rest, and more deadly to their enemies than anything else. They call these weapons _"jinchuuriki"_. Gaara is one of them."

Sakura glanced sideways at Naruto now, her brow creasing with worry, her heart aching with each word the old woman spoke. Naruto looked entirely without emotion, and was staring at Chiyo harder than everyone else. Hinata noticed this strange occurrence, as well as Sakura's look, and wondered what was the matter. Shino observed this as well, and kept it hidden, suspecting what Hinata could not, or was afraid to. He glanced at Kiba, who was silent and listening intently to Chiyo's story, hanging upon every word.

"To answer your question, finally, Kakashi, there is a reason for my haste, and a good one. It is not only that if a _bijuu_ falls into their hands, they will become that much stronger—no, if they succeed in drawing out Shukaku, it will be the third time such a thing has happened. Every container before Gaara who has had the demon removed from him, using a variant of whatever _jutsu_ they are using, has perished."

"What the hell!"

Everyone's gaze snapped to Naruto. The blonde was staring viciously into the fire, directing his anger into the intense heat of the flame, as if trying to feed it. He then looked up at Chiyo, and the woman was startled by the amount of force within his eyes; it was a look that she had not seen before, so powerfully emotional that it hurt to gaze into them. Even in all her years as a shinobi, she could not remember seeing a look such as that.

"Why the hell is it him? What the hell did he do to deserve this? To deserve anything? Just who did Gaara piss off in a past life to make him suffer like this!"

"Naruto…" Sakura whispered, in an attempt to calm him.

"All his life, Gaara's been treated worse than anybody. He's been treated like lower than trash, even less than the dirt that's been scraped off somebody's boots. He's been feared, hated, and what did he do to deserve it? 'Cause he had a father who was so stupid that he thought that using his kid to seal a demon would be a good idea? And now, after finally finding respect; after finally finding people who care for him, finally finding people whom he can call his precious people"—here he thought of Kankuro and Temari, and each of their pleading looks and words before he had left—"he's gonna die? After all of that?"

"Only if we let him," said Chiyo, regaining herself when the boy's tirade had finished. But his words had done more than ring through her ears, for her and everyone else. They had been so profound, and so passionately spoken, that Chiyo felt as if he had said them from experience. "That is what we are here to do, isn't it?"

"Then let's go!" Naruto roared, standing.

"Wait a minute, Naruto," said Kakashi, standing up as well. "As fast as we need to move, we can't simply go in and—"

"What else are we going to do?" Naruto said, glancing at his teacher. "What else can we do? All we know about those guys is that one of them is Sasuke's brother, one of them is some guy with a big sword, one of them uses clay bombs, and the final one is a puppeteer like Kankuro. What use is it going to do just sitting here talking about plans of attack, when we don't even know if they're all there? And each moment we sit here, the closer it gets to Gaara dying! Kakashi-sensei, planning is just pointless and stupid right now; we need to just act! This is a rescue mission—we're going to retrieve Gaara, not fight all of them to the death! The best we can do is split up into teams! We just have to get in there and find him, before he's killed!" He grit his teeth, twisting around to look down the ridge towards the waterfall. His voice became suddenly soft, still furious, but in such a way that he was speaking to himself.

"I don't care what you made me promise, _obaa-chan_. I can't let Gaara suffer anymore than he already has."

The words thudded in Chiyo's ears. She looked away. His words had brought something back to her that she had thought time and years of solitude had eroded away—such a powerful guilt that it stood like a fortress in her mind. But for the rest of Naruto's friends and team, it brought pangs of sadness and worry like the coming tide.

Tsuwabuki sidled up to Naruto, nudging the blonde's waist.

Sakura suddenly stood.

"Then two teams will suffice, won't it?"

Attention turned to her. She glanced around, focusing specifically at Naruto, who was also staring at her. She briefly smiled at him, before returning her attention to the rest.

"There are two outcomes, aren't there?" she said. "One is that the entire organization—all nine Akatsuki members—are hidden behind that door. If that occurs, then, like Naruto said, we launch as best a distraction as possible and rush in, grab Gaara, and leave. They'll probably give chase, but if we scatter, we can definitely outrun them. The second scenario would be that only two of them are in there—the one that defeated Gaara, and Chiyo-baasama's grandson, Sasori. If that should happen then two groups makes sense. One to each member of Akatsuki."

Kakashi gave a brief nod. "Of course, but we'll have to reduce the group numbers. You're forgetting the seal."

Neither Chiyo nor Kakashi could make sense of the seal upon the door to the cavern. It blocked Hinata's view of whatever was behind the door, and even stranger were the tendrils of _chakra_ that branched out from it, speeding in four directions away from it into the surrounding forest, forming a rough semicircle. It therefore, according to Chiyo, had four focal points that surrounded the original seal; and it was there that they would likely find a means to release it. But that required splitting up their group, and if Chiyo was guessing correctly, than the focal points needed to be disengaged at the same time in order to break the perfect harmony of the seal.

"Team Eight, then, will work on releasing the seal," said Kurenai, standing as well. "That will leave the four of you to deal with the Akatsuki members, which would be an easier number to escape should the first option occur."

"But harder should the second," Kakashi said, but nodded nonetheless. "But it's a chance we have to take. As Naruto said, it's time for action, not meaningless words." He glanced at Naruto, and winked. "You somehow managed to get better at strategizing without having to give up your natural way of doing things. I'm impressed."

"Was that a compliment?" Naruto muttered. Kakashi didn't answer, instead ordering Kiba to douse the fire.

"We'll go immediately. There's no sense in staying here any longer. The teams are simple: Naruto, his fox—" here, the fox in question growled slightly at the man, who amended his words immediately, "—sorry, Tsuwabuki, and I will deal with the man who defeated Gaara, while Sakura and Chiyo-baasama will deal with Sasori. Team Eight will release the seal. Should anything at all go wrong—retreat. I don't want anybody dying on this mission. That's an order. Sakura-chan, would you give everyone a soldier pill? It might be needed, considering what little rest we've gotten."

Sakura nodded, fishing into her medical pouch for the small bottle of grey pills that boosted stamina and strength for a few hours. She quickly handed them out, and the group moved, their camp now dark, down towards the waterfall at a flying pace.

Chiyo and Kakashi were the last to go; and before the old woman moved, she asked the silver-haired man: "Who is that boy?"

Kakashi was silent for but a moment. "He is the container of the Kyuubi. He knows Gaara's pain because it was his own." He then flew down the mountain after the rest of them, leaving Chiyo alone for a moment, her expression veiled by shadow.

"Ah, youth," she whispered to nobody.

* * *

Naruto ran next to Sakura; in the darkness, the girl could here him speak in a voice just above a whisper. 

"Thanks."

"Just be careful," she said, just as silently. She was glad it was dark. Glad that he couldn't see her face. "Please, Naruto…please." He couldn't get captured. He couldn't be subjected to whatever fate Gaara was being subjected to.

He couldn't…die.

She was glad it was dark, and that the trees blocked the moon from seeing her tears.

* * *

They immediately split up when they hit the waterline. With a brief good bye, and a promise from every team member to be safe, they departed. Hinata could not help but glance back once more at Naruto's hardened face as his team, after a moment of conversation between Sakura and Chiyo, crossed the water in light steps towards the waterfall. She wished every bit of luck she upon him, hoping that when they returned, he would still be there, alive and well—and happy too. This mission needed to be a success. So she would do her best to make it one. 

She activated her _Byakugan_ immediately upon entering the forest. The focal points were spread out less than half a mile in each direction of the mountainside, and glowed as bright as beacons to her _chakra_ sensitive eyes. They arrived at the first one, and with a brief once over, Kurenai confirmed it—it was a simple barrier seal, given a few extra embellishments, and could be deactivated with a simple _Kai_ technique. It was woven around a small post stuck in the ground, about three feet high. Kurenai was mystified by the presence of several seal markings on it that she had never seen before, and so with a word of caution to her students, told them to go to the three other points and wait for her single.

Kiba stopped at the next, the one closest to the wall of the mountain. Akamaru growled at the seal.

"Be careful, you two," Kiba told both his teammates. "There's somethin' about this that I don't like. Akamaru says there's something strange about the seal. I doubt it's gonna be as simple as it looks."

"We will," said Shino. "Take care."

Shino went next, giving Hinata a small nod of luck, never one to speak more than was needed. Hinata said a brief goodbye and set off again, stopping at the very far side of the area, where the mountain curved and the forest was thicker and darker than ever. She entered a small clearing, where in the center, she spotted the small barrier point. It looked deceptively innocent, despite its obviousness, and those who weren't trained in the shinobi arts would think little of it. She walked over to it, pulling out a small electronic headset from her weapons pouch as she did.

Upon turning it on, and waiting but a moment, she heard Kurenai's crackling voice in her ear.

"Now."

Thrusting her hands together, she muttered softly, _ "Kai."_

The black markings suddenly vanished. Then nothing.

She waited, breathing heavily. Still nothing. Was that all?

The small cylindrical post suddenly quivered. It suddenly began to sink into the earth, accompanied by a faint rumbling sound. Rock and mud bubbled up around it, becoming almost fluid. Then it gradually began to rise up, forming a rough shape, and then a figure—and then a person.

It was like staring into a mirror, Hinata thought.

* * *

The waterfall parted. 

With a great shaking of earth, the water faded until it was but a few dripping streams, revealing an immense door covered in black seals. The sight of it made everyone present uneasy, they knew from this moment, their lives would be in frightening jeopardy. Akatsuki were some of the strongest shinobi in existence, as strong as, or perhaps stronger, than the five Kage who ruled over the shinobi world. A fight with just one of them would be suicide for a normal _jounin_, and even for people like Kakashi, they were far too dangerous to even consider fighting alone. The silver-haired man let out a quaking breath, knowing that in the next few seconds, one of two plans of attack would take place.

The black seals suddenly faded, unraveling like a knot until only the strange runic symbols remained. Eventually, those two vanished, and with a sudden tremor, which was felt even upon the surface of the water, the door began to part.

"Get ready…" Kakashi whispered.

His team tensed, Naruto most of all. His entire body quivered, equal parts anxiousness and anger.

For whatever was on the other side, whether nine or two of the deadliest shinobi imaginable, there was one thing he did not want to see.

Finally, the door was open. Kakashi gave a slight wave of his hand, and four shinobi and one fox moved towards the gaping cavern. Kakashi was first, then Naruto and Tsuwabuki, then Sakura, and then Chiyo.

"What took you…yeah?"

They froze.

In the light that flooded the cavern, two figures stood, side-by-side, in such contrast that it would not have been so strange in one was aflame and the other was covered in ice. Both wore finely woven cloaks, blacker than the darkness that surrounded them, embroidered with crimson clouds. One was tall, thin and blonde, while the other was short, fat and vaguely red-haired. This man's face was wrinkled and tanned, like it was made of leather, and fixated into an eternal scowl. His blood-red hair was separated into six cornrows, and a black veil covered the lower half of his face. Behind them was a large, pure white bird.

Kakashi was shocked by their audacity. It was disgustingly insulting, almost. These men believed themselves so superior that they even forwent conventional battle tactics. They had not even deigned to surprise them, when in such a position a surprise attack could be lethal to Kakashi and his team. Kakashi found himself furious with the two men. Were they simply so overconfident that they believed they could face five trained warriors and win without using a natural advantage? Were these not supposed to be some of the most terrible shinobi imaginable? Yet, while it angered him, it also terrified him. They could be overconfident, yes, but it was just as probable that it was possible for them to do it. It was just as possible that they were strong enough to fight and defeat all of them in a direct confrontation.

But he would hope the opposite. They might underestimate him and his team. Then they would have the advantage.

"You've made us wait all this time…yeah. I mean it shouldn't have taken you so long to figure out a plan and come down, right? And the seal wasn't that hard to beat, with that Leaf bloodline of yours—_Byakugan_, right?" the blonde man said, with an accompanying snigger. "I could've built a terra cotta army in the time you guys took to get here, isn't that right, Sasori-danna?"

Chiyo's eyes narrowed as the second one spoke, his voice bored and resonating. "I suppose. They certainly took their time. We've already finished."

Naruto's eyes widened.

And then he saw what lay behind the tall one with the blonde hair. It was a small, dark figure, half-shadowed by the other man, but whose face was clearly cast in the light.

Gaara.

Asleep.

That's only what it could have been, with such a peaceful look. He was asleep. Not dead. He deserved at least some rest—he probably hadn't had a good night's sleep in years, perhaps all his life. He was allowed to sleep. Just for a while. Long enough for Naruto and the others to get him out of here.

'**_Naruto…'_** Tsuwabuki's voice interrupted his thoughts. '**_I cannot hear a pulse…'_**

Naruto glanced quickly at his spirit partner. He understood what she was saying yet he didn't want to—

No.

Naruto's face suddenly twisted into the most murderous look any of his friends had ever seen. His eyes did not bleed red, either, and what they reflected seemed all the more horrible; it was such a look of rage that it seemed to kill a small part of his humanity with but its presence. Tsuwabuki was hit with such a wave of emotion that she herself began to growl and snarl. _Chakra_ began to seep from Naruto's _tenketsu_, forming a dimly glowing aura around him. He quivered with built of rage, a dam ready to burst.

"He looks angry, doesn't he, Sasori-danna?" grinned Deidara. "I don't like angry people—do you think I can have him?"

"You already had your chance," the other stated. "He's mine."

"But I want to fight him," the other man whined, glancing away from his enemies in another display of disgusting audacity to look at Sasori. "I know that you're stronger than I, but that's why I feel I should prove myself. You have your art style, but I want to show you that mine is just as good."

"Nothing will change my opinion of your art," Sasori said, twisting his head in an oddly mechanical motion to look at Deidara. "It is disgusting and pointless and will never be true art."

"But it is! Art inspires emotion, and my art does it splendidly! But emotions aren't forever!"

"That hardly matters. Things that last forever will continue to inspire "emotion", whereas your art simply reflects the mind-numbing stupidity of philistines who can't see the truth in art. Those who simply see art as something "pretty" or "vibrant" or any number of pointless adjectives to describe a fleeting feeling. True art lasts forever. True art makes that feeling last until death."

"You're one to talk about feelings, Sasori-danna…yeah!"

With each word of their argument, Naruto grew ever more furious. He was snarling like a feral beast, and had adopted a crouched posture. But his eyes were still blue, and none of the dark _chakra_ seeped into his system, from what Kakashi could see. Tsuwabuki was no better.

Naruto suddenly moved.

Blindingly fast, Naruto crossed the distance between him and the two Akatsuki members in a second, flinging himself straight at Deidara. The blonde man stopped arguing immediately, and with a triumphant laugh, blurred away, reappearing atop the white bird behind him. Naruto tried to follow, but from beside him something massive emerged from Sasori's cloak, as fast as he could move, narrowly missing impaling him in the side. He ducked, rolled, and turned to find a hideous, segmented protrusion coming from Sasori's cloak that resembled a tail. It was a light tan in color, and appeared to be made of wood or something similar. At the end was a wicked sharp spear-like piece with glistening black stripes down each side. The tip was black as well.

"He's mine," said Sasori, in a voice sharper than normal.

"We'll let him decide, won't we?" laughed Deidara. "Follow me, kid!"

The huge bird moved suddenly, bending down and opening a gaping mouth. It scooped up Gaara's body, and before Naruto could stop him, hurtled itself into the air, towards the back of the cavern.

Naruto didn't even think. He flew after the man, like a raging windstorm with the _Kazaashi_, suddenly there and then suddenly not. Tsuwabuki followed swiftly.

"Remember the plan!" roared Kakashi, taking off after his wayward student. "I'll find him!"

He rushed past Sasori, who let him go without qualm. In fact, as soon as Naruto had left, he had lost all interest in the Kyuubi child, and was now staring at Chiyo, his two glossy black eyes narrowing at the woman. When Kakashi was gone, disappeared into the blackness of the cavern, it left Sakura and Chiyo alone with the man.

"Chiyo-baa?" he said. His tone was perfectly emotionless.

"Sasori," she muttered back, closing her eyes and heaving a slight sigh. "So we finally meet again, hmm? It's been over twenty years."

"Yes. You've gotten pruny, haven't you?" he said.

"And you've gotten fat, unless that's one of your puppets."

"Don't you remember Hiruko?" he asked, tilting his (or perhaps not) head to the side.

"He was always your favorite," she said, coldly. "You always did like getting your hands dirty. Being able to fight up close without fear of suffering harm. Not a conventional puppeteer at all."

Sasori nodded robotically. "I've modified him a bit, however, as you'll find out." He then seemed to notice Sakura. "And a Leaf-nin. I haven't fought one in a long time. Not exactly the epitome of feminine beauty, but you'll do, I suppose."

Even worried as she was, Sakura felt a burst of anger at the forefront of her mind. She narrowed her eyes and clenched her fists hard enough to bite through the leather of her gloves at the slight.

"I haven't added any females to my collection in a while, Chiyo-baa. I'd like to have both of you as soon as possible."

'_Collection?'_ thought Sakura.

"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed," said Chiyo, sounding tired and old. "I've come here to do one thing, Sasori—destroy you. I have been dreaming of this day for quite a while. I'll be able to die in peace knowing that you'll be going with me." She gave a rasping chuckle. "You'll have the ultimate disgrace of being slain by an old woman and a young girl. I hope you're prepared, Sasori."

"For death?" he asked, tilting his head to the side again. "I wonder."

Chiyo suddenly let fly from her robes a dozen shuriken. Sasori's tail flew up, deflecting most, but the ones that did strike tore through his cloak and then bounced off what sounded like thick, hard wood. Sasori charged towards the two girls, his tail lashing out like a striking snake. But they both dodged, and it merely crashed into the earth, obliterating a section of the stone floor.

Chiyo distanced herself immediately. Her grandson, she noticed, had gotten far stronger and more skilled in the years he had been away. To manipulate such a large and bulky puppet in such a swift and subtle manner was beyond the skill of most puppeteers, even after a lifetime of training. She remembered all she could about Hiruko—aside from the tail, which was easily its most deadly aspect, she could not remember what specific skills it had, other than the protection for the puppeteer himself. She did, however, remember a weakness on its backside, where the tail emerged.

Pulling from her robes a kunai, and attaching to it a particularly powerful explosive note, Chiyo waited.

But Sakura did the exact opposite. As soon as Sasori's attack failed, she ran towards him, armed raised. The puppeteer turned to look at her suddenly, and the veil suddenly ruffled, as if a passing wind had blown it aside. But Sakura saw the flickers of the little slivers of metal that emerged, her eyes long trained to detect such things. She ducked, and then leapt far to the side, Sasori's tail coming down on her again. As soon as she was far enough away, something shot past her, striking Sasori upon the back. A second later, the entire puppet was engulfed in a smoldering blast of fire and smoke.

Chiyo allowed herself a small smile. If she was lucky, then that would remove the tail and cut Hiruko's power in two.

But Sasori emerged, suddenly, unharmed. Bits of his cloak lay in cinders about him, and the entirety of his form was revealed. Comprising the entirety of his back was a large, hideously grinning mask, its mouth agape. From the mouth was the end of the tail. The rest of Sasori's body was big and bulky, like a turtle's shell. His two arms stuck out near the front—one long and normal, the other a strange deformity—the fingers was large and profoundly geometric, and surrounding the forearm was a large, cylindrical tube with many smaller tubes sticking out of it.

"I told you," Sasori said. "I made some adjustments. I couldn't let that weakness remain."

Chiyo did not attack again. She moved around Sasori, her ancient legs carrying her nonetheless swiftly to Sakura's position. The pink-haired girl was panting, both from strain and the knowledge that had but a single one of those pins struck her, she might have been slain.

'_He had poison in just but everything he used against me,' _Kankuro had said. '_Especially in the tail.'_

"That is not Sasori's body," Chiyo whispered as soon as she appeared next to Sakura. "We must destroy it. Your strength should be sufficient for that."

Sakura glanced quickly at her, and the back to Sasori. The puppeteer had turned and was patiently waiting for them to continue or stop their discussion. She grit her teeth in annoyance.

"But how do we…?"

"I'll see to that."

Sakura glanced back at the old woman. There was a crooked smile on her face, on Sakura had not yet seen the woman use. It was the first time Chiyo had smiled at her.

So she smiled back.

Sakura's body reacted without warning. She ran forwards, as if her legs were suddenly autonomous. Sasori suddenly thrust out his deformed left arm. As Sakura rushed, a curling blast of smoke erupted from the joint, and the arm shot off like a small rocket, directly towards Sakura.

It then exploded.

A wall of darkness erupted from the weapon—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tiny needles black as obsidian, each one dripping with enough poison to kill a dozen men. They came at Sakura with such speed that she had no time to think or fear for her life.

But they did not strike her. She found herself moving all on her own. Her body weaved, bent, twisted and flipped in such manners that not even Lee was capable of. By a hair's breadth the weapons missed her—not even a single graze, or a nick on the clothes. It was as if she was dancing to avoid the rain, and each movement was so light, so automatic that Sakura felt like a distant observer in her own body. It was as if she stood to one side, like Chiyo, and was watching the intricate dance in amazement. Her own face reflected this all the way until she was but three feet from Sasori, whose large glossy eyes had widened at the display of grace.

She found herself hauling back, and began to gather _chakra_ into her fist, focusing it into a tiny singularity. Sasori's tail swept around speeding straight at her chest. Her body jerked back, just narrowly avoiding death, and her fist flashed forwards, smashing into the tail and destroying the _chakra_ soaked wood, which was as hard as steel, as if it were plywood. It offered no shield to Sasori, but he jumped back anyways, lifting his remaining arm and pointing it at her. It split down the middle, flew apart, and from it emerged a long blade, blackened by his poison. It burst out, aiming for her chest, but her hands flew together, catching the blade between her palms. She swiftly snapped it, shattered with rest of the blade with a punch, and then lunged forwards, throwing with all her might a fist into Sasori's covered chest.

She released a burst of _chakra_ even greater than the last, and it struck Sasori with the force of a small explosion. It smashed through layers of wood, and blew apart his entire body like a toy being flung into a wood chipper. Sasori's head flew up, fixated with a final look of vague surprise, the veil obscuring his face flying off, and exposing a gaping lower jaw separated into three pieces, like a nutcracker's. The rest of his body scattered across a short distance, the face upon his back no longer grinning.

And when it all settled, beneath the black cloak his puppet had once hidden under, the true Sasori emerged.

* * *

"Dammit!" Kiba hissed, drawing back, clutching his wounded hand with the other. His doppelganger did not let him rest long, and came at him again, claws flying. This time Akamaru attacked, biting at the mimic's legs, but yelped as soon as his mouth made contact with the flesh. Kiba's doppelganger remained unharmed, while Akamaru now sported a fresh new burn on his tongue. 

It was not looking good. Whatever safety measure or booby trap this was, it was a good one. As soon as he had deactivated the seal, the small wooden post had burst into flame, which had then become this strange mimic. Its attacks were perfect copies of all of his, and no matter what he did, he could not injure it. Its skin burned hotter than molten iron, and with every strike with tooth or claw, he had been severely burned.

Kiba stared at the copy. It was truly like looking into a mirror—yet there were two slight differences. The first were the eyes. Kiba's eyes were black. This one's eyes were orange, like fire. The second were the addition of two finely crafted golden bracers that were attached to his doppelganger's wrists. They were large and incredibly valuable looking, covered in strange designs and spell paper with all sorts of strange kanji. Kiba resolved that he'd nick these once he had defeated the bastard.

He glanced at Akamaru. "Ranged attacks, then Akamaru! Let's kill this bastard and find the others!"

Akamaru barked in agreement, and they renewed their attacks with a singular howl.

Elsewhere, Shino was only slightly less frustrated. The doppelganger that faced him was swift and almost incorporeal. No matter how many _kikaichu_ he threw at it, whether they were the conventional drones or the highly swift and deadly bombardiers that he fired from his mouth, they simply seemed to move through it. But it's strikes were painful enough, and it duplicated his use of bombardier bugs by flinging small bursts of air in his direction which stung as if he had been struck by a blunt kunai.

He let out a soft breath. He needed to do this quickly. It was made from _chakra_, no doubt—his bugs were attracted to it like the plague. It would soon run out of energy to function, as long as he could continue the attack.

Hinata dodged another punch, slapping her doppelganger in the face. It barely moved, and did not slow in its next attack. This had been occurring for quite some time. No matter how many times she struck it, none of her _chakra_ had an effect. That meant that this being somehow had no _chakra_ system of its own. Without a _chakra_ system, it couldn't be classified as a living creature. Her _Byakugan _told her the same—this being was just a mass of _chakra_, somehow given form.

If she had to guess, it was the bracelets on its arms. She did not recognize any of the markings upon them, but the _chakra_ seemed to converge around them, and every so often it would release a pulse of power throughout the body. She guessed this was how it stabilized itself, and was given form. It looked like nothing more than a particularly stubborn earth clone.

Kurenai had a similar belief. Her doppelganger was swift and fluid—any damage it suffered did not remain. It was like punching a wave. She had wasted several kunai, and even an explosive note, but the being dodged like she did, and in the off chance it was hit, it never suffered true damage.

'_It's ingenious,'_ she thought. She had never seen such an advanced level of elemental manipulation. It was no water clone, but they were solid until struck, and this one could switch between the two, and was a mimic of her as well. It used her techniques, even ones that she had never displayed to it.

She dodged another blow, thinking as fast as she could. An inkling of a plan began to form in her mind.

Perhaps it was that simple.

* * *

"Congratulations," Sasori said, his voice drawling and bored. "You've destroyed one of my favorite puppets. I wasn't sure how you got so fast for a moment, girl, but I see it now." He glanced at Chiyo. "You used _chakra_ strings, didn't you? Controlling her like a puppet…haha, it's ingenious. You haven't lost your touch, old woman." 

Chiyo couldn't remove her eyes from the man before her. He had fiery red hair, inherited from his father, and a smooth, porcelain face, with a rounded, feminine jaw; it was unmarked and perfect. His eyes were large and blue, like a child's, but also slightly glassy, like those of a doll's. It was devoid of any emotion, but none of this was what truly struck her as horrible.

He had not aged.

Not one day in twenty years had Sasori gotten older.

"What…?" whispered Sakura, turning to face him with wide eyes. "Chiyo-baasama, is this really…?"

"What have you done?" Chiyo asked, glaring coldly at Sasori.

"Simply following my philosophy to its fullest," the man said, smiling. He did not look much older than Sakura or Naruto. He looked like a boy, even though he was reaching into his thirties! "Though I'm impressed by both of you. I didn't expect the girl to have such frightening strength, nor did I expect you to be so up to snuff." He reached into his black cloak, removing from it a large, red scroll.

"Do you know what a _hitokugutsu _is, grandma?"

Chiyo narrowed her eyes. Of course she did. It was the most forbidden technique a puppeteer could practice. It involved ripping out the entrails and skinning a human body, whether recently dead or still alive, and replacing all of its bodily functions with mechanics and wires and special seals, along with dozens of traps, to create a perfect puppet. It was said that such puppets had the ability to use some of the techniques they had in life.

It was what he had made his parents into.

"Precisely," said Sasori, giving a nod and a small, emotionless smile. "But in my travels, I have discovered many things. I have created many _hitokugutsu_, because I believe immortality is the perfect form of art imaginable. To preserve a beauty, whether physical or functional, for all eternity is an amazing thing, don't you think? I have amassed a considerable collection. I'm rather proud of it, you know—I love to brag. I so far have three hundred and seven puppets in my collection."

Sakura could not stifle her gasp. Three hundred? He had murdered that many people in his life?

"I am telling you this because for you to fully appreciate the beauty of this puppet, you need to know that nearly all of them are humans. I have scoured many countries for those who possess rare and powerful abilities that I wish to capture in time and preserve—to make immortal, so to speak. But there are several, this one included, that I have created because they mean something more to me. I was most impressed with this one, for example." He placed a hand on the scroll, almost lovingly, and then unfurled it.

He smiled, and sent a jolt of _chakra_ into it, causing the appearance of a gigantic cloud of smoke, which engulfed Sasori completely and forced both Chiyo and Sakura to move away towards the back of the dimly lit cavern.

"You see this one is the only puppet that I have…that was once called a _god._"

The smoke cleared.

And Chiyo and Sakura found themselves facing a monster.

It resembled a gargantuan blood red snake. It did not look at all natural, however—for replacing the fine scales on its body were thousands of tiny wooden plates fitted perfectly together, giving the creature a smooth and mechanical look. Its mouth was firmly shut and its eyes were big, red and glossy. Down the back of its head was a large crest, like a rooster's, turquoise in color, that was made up of perfectly cut triangles. It had long appendages that may have once been wings, but now were a pair of massive steel fans. For arms it had huge scythes, and for legs it had a long, winding tail made up of perfectly joined yet perfectly artificial segments. Large spikes surrounded an oval door on its chest; written on the door was the kanji for "blood".

"His name was Hakkar the Soulflayer. I came upon him in my travels in what is called the "Outworld" to us," said Sasori, glancing up at the beast with a blank smile, his eyes wide in perverted wonder.

"W-what on earth…?" Sakura gasped, stepping back towards Chiyo. The old woman mirrored her look flawlessly, staring up in horror and awe of the perfectly created beast.

"He was nearly dead when I came to him. He had been attacked and nearly destroyed by a band of his own former followers, seeking freedom from his tyranny," he gave a quiet laugh at this. "It took me an entire day to remove just his organs and then more than a week to finalize everything. But his body didn't even begin to rot!" he said, with a facsimile of surprise in his tone. "Isn't it beautiful? This is the power of my artistry, Chiyo-baa." He laughed again. "_Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair."_

"I plan to add both of you now," he said. "You'll both make three hundred and nine. Perhaps if Deidara hasn't obliterated him, I'll take the silver-haired man as well." Sasori smiled strangely at both of them, as if he was saying goodbye to two old toys that had served him well, and were now being consigned to the trash heap. He raised a hand. "Chiyo-baa, do you want to be first?"

Hakkar's puppet raised one of its huge, deadly arms, and brought it down in a swishing arc towards the two women. They split apart, each going in separate directions, letting the blade fall on nothing but earth. The serpentine beast whipped around to Chiyo, bringing with it another deadly swipe, this one horizontal. Chiyo ducked beneath the fatal blow, which would have easily sliced her in two, and dove her hands into her robes, producing from it a pair of seal scrolls, black in color, tied with red string.

With a few flicks of his fingers, Sasori made Hakkar open its great mouth with a whirring sound, revealing a large tube where the tongue should have been. From the tube a spout of searing hot flames suddenly erupted, streaming in a wide, cone-shaped path down atop Chiyo, just as the woman unfurled the scrolls and summoned their contents into being.

From behind the great red beast, Sakura caught a glimpse of the flames engulfing the old woman. She gave an incoherent shout, rushing forwards towards Hakkar's back, where the tail met the ground. She leapt into the air, raising a leg in preparation for a kick.

'_Tsutenkyaku!'_

But before her leg connected—just one moment before—some scales on Hakkar's body shifted, and from the resulting hole a form erupted, tall and light green in color. Sakura's leg did not strike the wooden exterior of the beastly marionette, and instead struck the glowing _chakra _shield of a large and imposing _hitokugutsu,_ that was clearly not human. It had big, leathery ears, straight tusks on either sides of its mouth, and a dead, glossy stare.

'_What?'_ Sakura was allowed a brief moment, all of the force from her kick traveling into the shield and leaving her bereft of balance as well as causing no damage to her attacker, before she was airborne again. She was flung violently back by the emotionless, tusked puppet, it's shield sending the absorbed kinetic energy back in a concussive wave of energy that left Sakura momentarily senseless. She hit the ground on her back, skidding away from Hakkar, landing very near where Sasori stood.

His next words, so close that she believed she could feel his breath, chilled her beyond words.

"I had to make up for the power that he lost by including his priests—those who worshipped him in life and gave their very beings to him. They, unfortunately, do not contain the powers they had in life, as most of their _chakra_ was gone when I found their bodies, but I feel they deserve to be with their master." He gave another emotionless laugh. "Such devotion, hmm? This is the power eternity has over people."

Sakura got to her feet, gasping, and turned to face Sasori. The man, however, was not looking at her, but found his attention drawn back towards the smoldering area where Chiyo had been. And still was.

She stood behind a pair of puppets. One was clearly female, with long black hair, while the other was clearly male, with short red hair. Both had faces and eyes made perfect by their artificiality. They were holding their hands out, and from them had sprung four plates, which were surrounded by glowing _chakra_.

Sasori had a strange, distant look on his face as he gazed at them.

"You brought them?" he asked, calmly.

"I figured I'd bring the whole family," sneered Chiyo. Her face contained a crooked smile, belonging only to an old woman of her spirit, but her eyes were sad and pained as she looked upon two of the people she had loved most in this world.

Sakura stared. '_Family?'_ she thought. Did that mean that they were Sasori's parents?

"They annoyed me," Sasori said. "They were ungrateful fools. I gave them immortality and they didn't seem to like it." He shook his head. "Why did you bring them here, Chiyo-baa? I guess I'll have to destroy them both, then."

"Then try it," retorted Chiyo. "They want to give you a hug, Sasori, can't you see? You can't deny parents a chance to hug their child, can you?"

Sasori cocked his head to the side. "Why not?"

He crossed his hands and Hakkar suddenly moved forwards. One of its scythe arms suddenly split in half, and from the part a stream of black spears erupted, raining down on Chiyo and her puppets with deadly force. The old woman sneered, rushing forwards, sending her puppets upwards. They flew, weaving through the deadly rain, and coinciding with Chiyo's hand movements, deployed their own weapons.

Sasori watched without emotion as his father literally removed his right hand and threw it towards his mother, who caught it with one hand, as a giant three-bladed claw unfolded from the other. His mother flew to Hakkar's right, and his father to the left. He would have continued gazing in awe, but he suddenly became aware of another presence on his side, and needed to leap back in time to avoid a right hook from Sakura.

The girl twisted and kicked him in the side, but again he moved, dancing away without changing expressions. Lightning quick she was on him again, throwing a dozen blurring punches at his head and chest. He pulled and twitched the _chakra_ strings attached to his fingers, telling Hakkar to turn.

Chiyo sent her daughter-in-law's puppet straight at Hakkar's head, while she guided her son at towards his midsection. Sasori's mother threw her husband's detached hand, where it stuck upon the smooth, artificial scales of Hakkar's chest, to the left of the marked door. By this time, Hakkar was in mid turn to deal with Sakura's attacks—his long arms slashed in surprisingly quick, decisive blows, driving Sakura away from Sasori with their ferocity.

Sasori's mother drove her clawed weapon into Hakkar's head, flying across his face and slicing deep into the "flesh". At the same time his father thrust up the hole created by his removed hand and with a single twitch of her finger, Chiyo released the weapon within—a stream of kunai, each of them bearing an explosive note, shot from the tube and headed straight for Hakkar's chest. Half turned as he was, they shouldn't have struck the front, yet the kunai moved of their own accordance, circling around Hakkar's big body and striking in rapid succession the very same point Sasori's father's hand was stuck.

Sasori watched again in detached amazement as the entire front of Hakkar was engulfed in a searing blast of flame and smoke, which shook the cavern in an immense boom. Sasori then watched as his mother removed her claw from Hakkar's head, and moved with his father straight towards him. He saw also Chiyo's determined, fiery glare.

And he felt a brief spark of amusement.

It was not much, but the sudden feeling of elation seemed to awaken him. His eyes widened and he smiled a little larger than he usually did, even exposing his teeth.

'_What fun,'_ he thought.

He twitched a finger, drawing a small _chakra_ string back. Hakkar's tail lifted up, the end opening and revealing four metal plates inscribed with seal spells. He sent a jolt of _chakra_ through the strings, causing the seal markers to shoot out white smoke and summon the weapons contained within. Out came a forest of spearheads attached to long chains, three of which impaled his father and another which drove itself through the chest of his mother. The chains then coiled around them, wrapping them up tight enough to crack their bodies in the gleaming black steel.

Chiyo stared in horror. '_That's impossible. No puppeteer on earth has that amount of control! It would require hundreds of chakra strings to manipulate such fine details!'_

Sasori nodded to himself, the feeling of elation passing as swiftly as it had come. He frowned. He observed the damage to Hakkar passively. The explosion had weakened the puppet's chest severely, but had caused no cracks—the damage was minimal.

Chiyo cursed upon seeing this as well. '_He must have put an enormous amount of effort into this.'_ She could do nothing but glare at Hakkar, for it pained her too much to see her son and daughter-in-law, puppets as they were, entangled as they were; and pained her even more, to see Sasori the one behind it.

She needed to destroy that puppet. No, _they_ needed to. She turned to look for Sakura, wondering where the girl had gotten to. She saw nothing. '_Where is she?'_ the woman thought, wondering if the girl had abandoned her for a brief moment, but shunting that aside.

No. If she was anything like that Slug woman, then she would not do such a thing.

"What's wrong, Chiyo-baa?" asked Sasori. "Were they the only ones you brought?"

"Of course not," she snorted. "But they are the only ones I am going to use on you."

"Ah," he said.

Hakkar's head spun back towards Chiyo, opening once more. But instead of the spout, there was now rows and rows of sharp, gleaming swords for teeth; the mouth opened as wide as it could go, and the gums stuck up, preparing the teeth blades to be launched as missiles.

Chiyo steadied herself. She could dodge this. She was not useless yet!

"Bye, Chiyo-baa," Sasori said.

Then a blur of pink and red fell from the ceiling, striking Hakkar's head so hard and with such a fluid and powerful motion that in one moment, the head was there, and in the next, it had exploded in a shower of metal and wood, with Sakura right in the middle, her leg buried deep into the puppet's body. In the same movement, she flipped off Hakkar's neck and onto his back, and with incredible speed and grace ran down the puppet's back.

Sasori cursed, flicking a hand. Several scales shifted along the tail, causing three pale green _hitokugutsu_ to emerge. One of them clutched a shield, and the other two had raised hands. Four large flaps, one on each side of their arms, sprang up and in a gust of smoke thousands of grasping arms erupted, moving in twin streams towards Sakura.

So she improvised.

With a cry, she smashed her foot into the surface she stood upon—the middle of Hakkar's tail, injecting it with a bolt of _chakra_ equivalent to falling meteorite. It blew apart the tail where she stood, severing it in two, making the traps at the end effectively useless. The entire tail fell to the ground, and Sakura leaped away from the torrent of arms, leaping and flipping until she reached safety—the ground in front of Hakkar.

'_What?'_ Sasori thought, frowning. From his position, he could see the girl quite plainly. And yet he still could not believe it.

Chiyo found herself smiling. '_Clever girl,'_ she thought. She then saw Sakura's movements—the quivers with each slight motion, the determined posture, and the monstrous power of her previous attack—she was using the very technique Chiyo had found herself praising at the previous _Chuunin Exams_.

_Nouha Sayuu_.

Sasori frowned, staring at the girl. Her movements had changed. How odd. And now she possessed enough destructive force to blast through layers of _chakra-_soaked wood, which meant she posed a significant threat to the safety of his puppet. He glanced at the fallen tail. He flicked his hands, causing the three priests—he didn't bother to note what three, to leap out. He then glanced back at Chiyo, just in time to see his parents rejoin her. His father was still impaled in three places, and had several chains still attached. His mother had disposed of her imprisonments, and had only a small hole in the black robe she wore.

He glanced back at Sakura. She was a problem. It looked like he'd have to use _that_, then.

He shrugged. It didn't matter. It had been waiting to use it anyways.

Sakura's body quivered with each breath she took. Her sense of touch had dulled a bit from the adrenaline and endorphins she had pumped into her system, but her other senses were alive and well. She was cut in several places and bruised in many others.

Oddly, however, she felt no touch of poison in her system. That meant that he hadn't poisoned everything on this puppet.

"Don't worry," said Sasori, "there's no poison on most of the weapons on this puppet. That would be too troublesome, and synthesizing that amount of poison would be annoying." He jerked a hand, making Hakkar move back towards him, which was a bit difficult, as it no longer possessed the latter half of its primary mobilizing limb. He jerked another hand, making Hakkar sit up straight.

"But that's because I have something else for this puppet."

He jerked a hand, and the small oval door on Hakkar's chest began to open. Sakura stared up at it, seeing a fine, red mist begin to seep from the hole, which glowed crimson.

"You see Hakkar's true title was the _Blood God_ of the _Gurubashi_ Empire. The _Gurubashi_ being a long dead empire in the world that Hakkar comes from. The same world, in fact, that the Kyuubi boy came from."

Sakura's eyes widened.

"His most dangerous attribute was not his fearsome size, nor his ability to sustain damage, nor his incredible strength or any other number of fierce physical abilities he possessed. His true power, the one that made him so dangerous to his attackers, was something much greater than any poison one could ever manufacture. It has a name in its own language—_hakmashar—_or as we might call it, 'corrupted blood'."

Sasori's finger gave a final twitch, and Hakkar lurched forwards. From the oval hole a stream of the red mist erupted, descending upon Sakura with frightening speed. The girl leapt away, but when the mist struck the ground it spread outwards. Chiyo and her puppets backpedaled towards the wall, while Sakura ran to the side. Hakkar turned with her, sending another stream in her direction, while at the same time lifting one of its scythe hands and bringing it slashing down at Sakura.

She twisted, punching the blade aside with a devastating blow, but was a fraction too late. A small wisp of the red mist touched her skin, on one of the small wounds caused by her punches. It was only for a second, and then Sakura was away again, distancing herself as far away from the mist as possible, unaware that she had been touched.

Hakkar turned again, planning to continue its attack. But its master stopped it, suddenly. Sasori gave the girl a light smile when she met his eyes.

"It's done," he said. "You're dead."

Sakura frowned, her heart pumping fast. '_What?'_ she thought. What did he mean? Had she been touched? She glanced around her, suddenly afraid. Her heart began to beat faster. A sliver of pain shot through her arm. She glanced at it, seeing one of the wounds beginning to bleed, profusely. Another pain, this one deeper, suddenly shot up her arm, towards her chest.

Her heart beat ever faster. She began to sweat, feeling a heat deep within her beginning to burn.

"_Hakmashar _is the deadliest disease created by nature. It has a mortality rate of one hundred percent." He tilted his head to the side. "It is also the most painful way of dying imaginable. Your blood will begin to boil alive inside you, and you will not die until the very end, when every artery, vein, and capillary in your body has burst." He gave her a small smile, that in a moment Sakura thought rather reminded her of Gaara's, except without any shred of kindness or remorse, or even anything else. There was nothing in that smile.

Nothing at all.

Her brain, active as it was, was telling her that everything was wrong. Her body heat was rising. Her heart was beating faster and faster. Her wounds began to stream blood, and every part of her body began to burn. She screamed. Blood began to stream from her nose, her mouth, her ears, even her eyes. She gagged on it. There was so much blood.

The pain was unbearable. She couldn't stop it.

She screamed.

"Sakura!" screamed Chiyo, rushing towards the girl.

"You will die too, grandma, if you touch her blood. Then you'll have no chance to do as you told me you would," said Sasori. "Just watch. It'll be over soon."

It was over in another second. Sakura fell, blood streaming from every pore on her body. Her eyes had rolled up into her head. She landed on her stomach. She twitched a few times, and finally lay still. She did not move again.

"No…" whispered Chiyo. "NO!

"SAKURA!"

* * *

I think that takes the cake as "worst cliffhanger ever," don't you? 

Aren't I a stinker?

Is Sakura dead? Or will she pull through? Who knows? You'll find out next chapter.

Extra long one today because I haven't updated in a while, thanks to exams. Expect to get another chapter next week, for those who aren't traveling to my house to lay in wait to murder me.

I wanted originally to do something with Hakkar during the Troll arc, but I liked Captain Blood better. For those that remember, Vol'jin and his crew defeated Hakkar and his priests in order to free the Bloodscalp and Skullsplitter tribes from his rule. This is where he ended up.

By the way, this is the beginning of the big changes to the story line. You'll get more in the next chapter.

And by the way…BURNING CRUSADE! IT'S OUT! BUY IT! LOVE IT! I wanted to have the chapter done for Tuesday, but that didn't happen. I'll be playing that plus writing for this story the next two weeks I'm home. I don't expect to get much else done.

Well, that's about it. Enjoy the mind-numbing worry you Sakura-lovers! And don't get too excited you Sakura-haters!

Seeya!

General Grievous

* * *

_**Scroll of Seals**_

_**Yajuu Dogou (Beast Roar)**- _Creates a howling blast of air, which can only be generated by a beast partner. Used by both Tsuwabuki and Akamaru, in varying forms.

**_Jinshuteki Genkai: Kijutsu Honryuu (Racial Limit: Mana Torrent)- _**A mysterious ability that can drain chakra and seal it as well. Expands outwards in a powerful pulsing wave. Used by Yura.

**_Kongoubutsu no jutsu (Amalgamate Technique)- _**A mysterious ability used by the Akatsuki leader to create a variety of effects on a human subject. Causes eventually their body to burn out from exhaustion. Some abilities include regeneration, berserker rage, ability to hide from all forms of detection, super strength, and ability to survive grievous bone displacements.


	7. A True Artist

**Disclaimer: Wait…do I own Naruto or World of Warcraft? No…wait…that was just a dream I once had…sorry.**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Kurenai released a deep, shuddering breath. She did not attack, and hence, neither did her doppelganger. They stood, barely three feet from toe to toe, each staring steadily forwards. There was no possible way that this creature could have absorbed her attacks and movements from just watching her. It couldn't, therefore, be a sight-based _jutsu_, nor could it be a one-time process. Somehow, as she thought of them and prepared for them, this doppelganger was copying her attacks.

And she thought she had the answer.

She made a single hand seal, taking a deep breath.

And she stopped. For a scant few seconds, her _chakra_ coil system froze in time. Every bit of _chakra_ that flowed through her body came to an arresting halt, and in that moment, the body of Kurenai's doppelganger grew faint. Its skin and clothes became transparent, and Kurenai was able to see what was beneath—it appeared to be no more than a mass of living water, shaped vaguely like a man's torso. It was nearly as tall as her, and dark blue as the sea. But holding her _chakra_ system was as painful and straining as tightening a muscle for too long. She released her breath, and once again the doppelganger became whole.

'_So that's it,'_ she thought, smirking. By deactivating the seal, she had formed a connection with the trap, and her _chakra_ was continuing this technique; and yet, she could not explain the water-beast beneath her doppelganger's skin. She had never seen something like that before. Was that what was giving it its properties? But that meant she still had to find a way to destroy it, once she had stopped it from following her attacks.

Her eyes lingered on the golden armbands. They, no doubt, had something to do with it.

Her plan was decided, then. She flipped open a weapon's pouch, pulling out a _kunai_ and an explosive note. She carefully wrapped the note around the dagger, watching as her doppelganger mimed the action with a _kunai _of its own.

She would have to act fast.

She put the _kunai _between her teeth, slammed her hands together again, and stopped, once more.

The image faded, and with all her might, she continued to halt her _chakra_, while reaching up, grabbing the _kunai_ and hurtling it. It flew at a downward angle, striking the ground just below the water creature, and exploded.

The creature was scattered across the clearing in a shower of water. The golden armbands were flung in opposite directions, landing with soft thumps on the hard earth. Kurenai then let her _chakra_ flow once more, gasping loudly as she did.

She glanced about. It was done. She waited a few seconds just to be sure, and then left the clearing with a swift bound, heading into the forest. She jammed an earpiece into her ear, and shouted into the headset.

"Hinata! Shino! Kiba! Report! What's happening?"

"I've finished," came Shino's slow monotone.

"D-done here," Hinata's voice crackled, with obvious relief.

"Just did it! I was waiting for somebody to call!" Kiba cried, joyful to hear his teammates speak.

She smiled in relief. But there was pride there as well; they had figured it out all on their own, and had defeated the technique as she had.

"Let's go meet Team Kakashi. They might need some aid."

Her students agreed, all quite vociferously. Kurenai changed direction immediately, heading down the slope and towards the waterfall at the bottom. There was a sudden coldness in her bones, and she felt quite worried. She hoped they were all right.

* * *

They emerged from a small opening in the very back of the immense cave. It had taken them all the way through the mountain, and out into the fresh, dark, early morning air. Deidara erupted forth from the cave, his avian mount taking him high above the river that lay below, between the mountain he had emerged from and a tall cliff. He flew nearly level with the tree tops on the cliff, gazing down with a pleased smirk as he saw the Kyuubi brat appear a moment later, in but a blur of motion that he himself had difficult following.

'_So that's how he kept up…yeah,' _he thought. He hadn't been actively trying to lose the boy in the cavern, but he had been moving fast enough to keep out of distance of most shinobi. But the boy had nearly caught him three times, and he had been forced to speed up an equal number of times to avoid him. The boy had even tried launching a few distance techniques—a poorly constructed fire _jutsu_ and a strange variant that shot ice. He had not bothered to waste any clay trying to beat the boy there—he'd be able to do it better out in the open, where he had more freedom to move. The mount he had created was designed specifically for that purpose: quick lateral and vertical movements that allowed him to avoid being struck as well as attack normally.

He glanced down again. His smile faded. A moment after the boy, a silver fox along with a man with similar colored hair appeared. His right eye zoomed in on the man, who looked different from before—his _hitai-ate_ was up, and what Deidara saw made him frown.

'_A Sharingan?' _he thought. '_But in only one eye…who is this guy?'_

He looked back towards the Kyuubi boy. He had leapt into the air, sailing across the ravine, and was now running along the cliff face, moving at a surprising speed considering the terrain. He would not catch up to Deidara anytime soon, however. This gave the Akatsuki member time. He reached into one of the side bags beneath his cloak and grabbed two bunches of his special clay. He still had quite a bit left, and once again he was happy that he had had the oversight to stock up on it before they had begun.

"Naruto!" roared Kakashi, stopping, Tsuwabuki by his side. He had encountered the fox on his way through—she had apparently slowed to meet him, for when he reached her, she became considerably harder to keep up with. Now that they had reached the open air, Kakashi spotted the blonde tailing Deidara, running along the cliff face.

Naruto glanced back at Kakashi. He then looked back up at the flying Akatsuki member, just barely catching sight of Gaara's dangling arm from the white bird's mouth. His boiling anger returned in a heartbeat, and he moved a bit faster.

Seeing that trying to make him stop was not going to work, Kakashi tried a different tactic.

"Find some way to get in close! He's a long-range fighter, Naruto! He'll be weakest when you're closest! I'll try to slow him down!"

Naruto looked back again, and nodded to the man to show that he understood. A moment later, Naruto had leapt off the cliff, for a moment was suspended in mid-air. In the next, the boy tucked his legs in, as if prepared to jump off the air itself.

Which is precisely what he did.

Naruto was suddenly—amazingly—flying. Or at least he looked to be. Kakashi's eyes widened when Naruto's legs shot out, and the boy sped upwards, instead of continuing to fall. The boy did this again; and again, and again, speeding steadily towards Deidara's level, who was staring at him with a similarly impressed look.

Naruto had never so valued his training with Thrall in that moment.

'_Wind elemental chakra?' _thought Kakashi, staring. He shook himself, returning his attention suddenly to Deidara. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and closed his left eye for a second, gathering _chakra_ steadily into the whirling crimson eye.

When he opened it, it had changed. No longer was it a solid black pupil, surrounded by three small comma-like marks; now it was a solid black shuriken shape, which spun swiftly in place, as if in flight. He then began to focus—everything.

He looked. He did not see, but he looked, as hard as he could, straight at Deidara—he gazed a gaze that many thought was just a figure of speech.

A look could literally kill.

In the two years since Naruto had left, Kakashi had done more than just solo missions for his personal training. He had experimented, especially with the _Sharingan_ that he had received from his long departed friend and teammate, Obito. He had found that thinking of the previous owner of his eye had brought a peculiar pain to his eye—but then again, it always had. A pain that he had long attributed to merely his own guilt, which lay long buried underneath years of memory. A guilt, which while he acknowledged frequently in the form of his visits to the memorial, he had never dwelt too long upon otherwise. It had hurt too much, and so he simply did it in moderation. When Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura had become his _genin_ students, the guilt had begun to lessen, and he had stopped frequenting the memorial of his friends. But it hadn't faded, and never truly would. Therefore, he had never really dwelled on that aching, deep pain, until a need born from Sasuke's defection and Naruto's disappearance had made him think. After years of constant pain, and everything he had ever known about the Uchiha clan, he had finally realized that there was something more to it. The pain was not natural. Perhaps it was guilt, but he began to think it was much more than that.

Simply pouring _chakra_ into the eye had never made a difference, but after months and months of training, Kakashi had begun to see another effect blossom from his constant use of the _Sharingan_. When focusing on that guilt he had held for so long, focusing so hard that it hurt beyond words—he could make his eye do something it had never done before.

And at that moment, he was attempting to reproduce that effect. He focused all of his attention on Deidara, so much so that everything around him dissolved into dust, and it just him and the Akatsuki member. He ran at an angle that allowed him to get a shot without risking Naruto being hit, and simply focused.

The pain—deep-rooted, powerful, nearly endless; an old scab that he had never let fully heal, burned more and more with each passing moment, springing from an ache to a roaring fire. He did nothing to stop it, or waver from his course.

He just continued to look.

Naruto felt something rush by him; it was enormous, hot, and pinched his skin almost painfully—as if someone where trying to pull the flesh from his bones. He glanced back in the direction it had come from, spotting Kakashi, and saw that the man was staring straight up at Deidara, with a look in his eyes that slightly shocked the blonde, all things considering. In one eye, the obsidian black that was always exposed, Naruto saw an immense fury that seemed to make his eye glow like a stoked coal in a fire pit. But in the other, Naruto saw a pain as deep and bottomless as the sea. He saw too, a _Sharingan_ eye that he had never seen before. He almost faltered in his next _air-grasp_, but another wave of whatever Kakashi was doing sent his attention back to Deidara.

The attack struck Deidara before he actually knew was happening, but it did not have a lethal effect as intended. Deidara felt a sudden jolt in his stomach, followed by a fierce pain and a feeling as if his abdominal muscles were being sucked into his body. The feeling moved up his chest, straight in the center, making him cry out—even his face began to hurt now, and his vision began to distort and blur. Everything became like a tunnel, suddenly, and his chin snapped to his chest, so that he was forced to see what exactly was happening to him. He gave a startled shout when he saw that his chest and the majority of his torso were being drawn into a small center point—a singularity which seemed to be drawing in every molecule, every atom, into that small, indefinable point—in the middle of his chest. It was as if his very existence was being pushed into a tiny spot, barely the size of a soldier pill. It was a strange and awful feeling, and he felt almost sick from it. The pain became suddenly unbearable, so he tried to pull himself away—by thrusting himself to the side with as much force as he could.

It worked. The point and the pain shifted, moving across his chest and onto his left arm. He felt his bones being distorted again, and he continued to pull away. But this time much more pain came, and it reached a sudden head a second later, when the point reached its smallest size, and Deidara's arm was cut in two at the elbow; his left fore arm fell away, landing a moment later in the dirty river below, while his entire elbow simply disappeared. Nearly a pound of flesh, muscle, and bone simply vanished, leaving Deidara with a missing arm for the second time in a week.

"Dammit!" Deidara snarled, clutching the bleeding stump. He stepped back on his mount, gritting his teeth with the mind-numbing pain that would have made most men faint. He reached for a bottle tucked away in his cloak, but before he could move further, Naruto was upon him—he had forgotten the blonde in the heat of the moment, exactly as Kakashi had intended.

Naruto swung his short sword at Deidara's head with the intent to remove it. But the older man ducked, so it clipped the top of his golden topknot. Deidara kicked Naruto in the leg, but it felt like kicking iron. The blonde didn't move an inch, and instead punched the Akatsuki member a dozen times in the chest, driving him back against the edge of the mount, so that he nearly toppled off. Naruto attempted a follow-through, but Deidara thrust something forwards—a small clay model in the shape of a spider. In grew to about the size of a basketball, its long, jointed legs latching themselves around Naruto's face.

Deidara laughed. He ran forwards and kicked Naruto off the mount, while the blonde desperately tried to pry off the invader. He did not plan to detonate it, not yet—he didn't want to kill the poor boy, after all.

Naruto fell, struggling to pull the spider off him, and when he did, he glanced up for the few seconds he had towards Deidara, and with a cry, hurtled his short sword swiftly upwards in a perfectly straight line. Then he managed to right himself just in time to crash into the river below. It was deep, so he didn't strike any rocks, but the distance more than made up for it. He struck the water with a painful slapping sound, left for a moment senseless by the fall.

The sword flew, piercing the mount just below the neck, and soaring past Deidara's chin—barely missing him. It flew only a few feet higher before crashing, and becoming stuck, in the clay behind the Akatsuki member. Deidara, glancing with a sneer at the failed attack, removed the second bottle of troll's blood potion he had tucked away in his cloak, and downed it with a disgusted look. But only Kakashi was able to witness its frightening effects this time—he stared numbly as Deidara's arm returned as if it had never left.

"What on earth is he…?" The _Sharingan_ had removed an enormous amount of his _chakra_—far more so than ever before. When this was all over—should he survive—he would be spending a few days in the hospital, he knew. For more than physical reasons.

Deidara glanced coldly down. The man who had removed his arm was staring up at him, his _Sharingan _eye whirling. '_What the hell was that?'_ the blonde man raged. _'It was almost as strong as Itachi's…yeah.'_

He reached into his cloak, removing more clay, making it into a pair of his favorite cranes. In a flash they were life-size, and both were flying at Kakashi in arrow paths. Instead of trying to dodge—which he knew he'd fail—Kakashi hurtled a pair of kunai at the birds, clipping one's neck off and missing the other. His eye's widened, and he prepared to leap, just as the bird reached him.

And detonated in his face.

* * *

"No…" Chiyo whispered, staring with fresh horror at the bloody mess on the cold, dirty cave floor. Sakura lay face down in a pool of her own blood, still as death and resembling it to a degree that made even a battle-hardened women like Chiyo cringe in horror at the sight. Her last few moments were now frozen in Chiyo's mind. They would not stop playing before her eyes, even though it was now over—forever.

She began to shake, without knowing it.

"How boring," Sasori said, calmly. "She's already dead. I thought it might take a bit longer—she seemed to be a bit different from your average shinobi. It doesn't matter, however." He began moving his fingers, and the three puppets before him leaped onto Hakkar's ruined form. Three more joined them, appearing from small holes in the scales, created by Sasori's subtle manipulations. Three of them were clearly male, the largest of them being at least a foot taller than the rest, with a strange, and rather frightening, mask. The other three were clearly female, though all of them were dressed in the same black robes, with subtle differences. There was an emblem on each of their robes—a bat, a spider, a snake, a tiger and a black panther, as well as another unidentifiable marker on the biggest of them. They stood in a line atop Hakkar's shoulders, staring down at Chiyo and her puppets, and perhaps Sakura's body as well, with cold, silent, lifeless eyes and blank faces.

Sasori moved his fingers again; making three of them jump from Hakkar's shoulders onto his back, and then onto his severed tail. From there, two leapt onto the separated end, and their arms split apart, as if they were going to attack—but from their opened hands a glowing green light flowed. The tail began to move, drawing slowly nearer towards the stump it had come from, where the third puppet stood, its arms out and glowing as well.

"Interesting, isn't it? They spent their entire lives wishing for immortality, granted by Hakkar, and now they are the ones who seek to keep him alive. And imagine that instead of finding immortality in a god, they found it in a mere human—in their eyes, that would be the ultimate disgrace, you see. These people detest humans, or they did for quite a while."

Chiyo spat. "I could care less about your disgusting sense of art, Sasori. I did not come here for that. I came here to kill you." Her eyes briefly flickered towards Sakura as she said that, feeling a lance of guilt with her words. Her death came again, unbidden. Chiyo shuddered, wanting it to end.

This girl had not been meant to die.

She closed her eyes. Youth could not be wasted so much. Sakura, with all her talent, had been meant to live.

So why had she died?

She looked at Sasori. Because of him. He had ended her life. He and his disgusting puppets had killed her so brutally. She looked at Sakura's body again, and felt a melancholy unlike anything since her son had perished. It was a sudden shock, like awakening in a pool of ice-cold water. She had been so senseless to feeling all this time, that it took a young girl's death, from the Leaf no less, to awaken her. Now, awash in feeling as she was, she could not help but find some terrible joy in it. It felt good to truly care once more about something, anything. Now she cared about this girl. This dead girl, once an enemy and now no longer anything but a lifeless, bloody corpse whose death would remain in Chiyo's mind until her last breath.

She cared enough that she was going to make Sasori pay for one more thing—so dearly—making sure that he felt that payback long into the next life.

She swallowed. "So I shall do that, and I would be pleased if you didn't interrupt it with your boring descriptions of your disgusting and pointless artistry."

Sasori scoffed. "How rude. I was just giving you a little longer to plan your attack. You will need it, as Hakkar is nearly finished with what repairs I can give him."

Indeed, the trolls on his shoulders had already reconstructed half of the snake-like head, and the other half was coming even faster than before. Oddly, the largest of the trolls did not join in the repairing process. He just looked down, and though Chiyo could not see its eyes, she felt them, with a shudder.

Even in the death, this creature had such a presence it was staggering.

"And I take offence to your words, hag. Someone as old and wrinkly as you can feel nothing but jealousy when looking upon my art. I have captured what everyone has so longed for in their lives—a true constant, a stability that would never end. I make that feeling and hold it in every work of art I produce. How dare you, grandma," he said this with particular impassion, so it felt almost mocking, "call my art disgusting and pointless."

Chiyo narrowed her eyes. Her teeth were clenched tightly. Sakura's eyes, wide and filled with pain, came into her thoughts again.

"Shall we begin again, then, grandma?" Sasori asked.

Chiyo didn't answer. Her eyes drifted one final time to Sakura.

Yes.

Chiyo's children attacked with a sudden ferocity that puppets, in their nature, seemed incapable of. They attacked so swiftly that it was as if they had acted of their own accordance. The red-haired puppeteer countered by suddenly making Hakkar move one of its giant scythe hands in a quick, diagonal slash. The puppets avoided it easily, one ducking beneath and one soaring over. But before they could reach Sasori, the three priests of Hakkar leapt in their way—one clutching a glowing _chakra_ shield, the other two with large swords appearing in their hands. The two reconstructing Hakkar's head abandoned their half-finished task, deploying weapons of their own—one with a huge, wicked looking claw on one hand, the other with a bladed whip—and careened towards Chiyo herself.

"Unlike Hakkar, Chiyo-baasama, I did bother to put poison on his priests' weapons," Sasori said, with that startling arrogance once more.

A female priest—with the bat on her robe— thrust at Chiyo's head with her claw, while the male accompanying her—with the snake—swung the whip at her torso. Chiyo lifted one hand, and in perhaps the most foolish and desperate move she had ever made, grabbed the whip, preventing it from cutting into her stomach, and wrenched it up, using it and her own failing strength to block the claw from impaling her. She then pulled away, and as the two puppets moved in for a follow-up attack, she pulled back a sleeve of her robe, thrusting out her arm. The skin was remarkably smooth for someone her age, and perfectly unmarked—the reason became clear a moment later, when from the flesh sprung four flesh-colored plates, like the arms of a windmill. Both whip and claw struck a barrier made of solid _chakra_, and had bought Chiyo enough time to jump backwards, fleeing her pursuers and focusing once again on her own puppets.

"That was stupid, old woman," Sasori said. "You just got poisoned." There was a small smile on his face, as pleasant as a frozen corpse. He was not surprised by her sudden ability, however. She was exactly the type of person who would modify her own body, adding weapons and tools usually reserved for puppets to it. But it delighted him, almost to see her use such tools. She was a true puppeteer, like him.

Chiyo ignored him. She wrenched her hands back, and her children flew with them, breaking from the stalemate they had with the three priests from Hakkar's tail. They immediately returned to her, their black robes and wide bodies shielding Chiyo from Sasori's view.

The apparently young man frowned. What was she planning now?

Chiyo dug into her robes, pulling out a small single-shot medicine container, filled with a light blue liquid. She stuck the needle into her arm, and the contents flowed into it with a soft hissing. She returned the antidote to her robes, not wanting Sasori to get wind of it.

Sakura, she decided, truly had been an amazing girl. Before they had entered the hideout, Sakura had pulled her aside and given her one of the three antidotes she had created from the amount of poison that Sasori had injected into Kankuro. She said that it would remain in the bloodstream for three minutes, and in that time would neutralize any poison that entered her system.

That meant, starting now, she had exactly three minutes to kill Sasori.

_  
'I'll end it now' _she thought. She looked forwards, at her two puppets—their robes shredded, several of their weapons ruined, but still staring steadily forwards, at Sasori and him alone.

"Forgive me," she said to them, softly. "I'm not strong enough to defeat him with just your aid. I must use them."

They said nothing in return, of course. But Chiyo felt a sudden relief in her, as if they had told her it was all right; all that mattered, they said, was that Sasori was beaten. He had been left alive too long. She must use whatever was in her arsenal to stop him, to destroy him completely so it became as if he had never existed. Use whatever you have to destroy him, Chiyo, they told her.

Because it was too painful to see him like this.

"Thank you," she whispered, reaching into her robes and retrieving a scroll that was perfectly white; so white that it seemed to glow, and felt almost warm to the touch, as if it was forged from light itself. There was but a single word written on it, in small, tidy black _kanji_.

_Chikamatsu_.

Sasori didn't see what she was doing. So he decided to make her show him. With a few flicks of his fingers, five of his seven puppets launched an attack on Chiyo and her own puppets. Hakkar and the big _hitokugutsu_ hung back, watching in apparent silent appraisal. Sasori decided that he would kill Chiyo in the old fashioned way—he didn't want a repeat death, using Hakkar's disease. And it would be much more fun, he decided, to see his grandmother get butchered by half a dozen puppets, and see her body parts flung all over the place as they tore her to pieces. Maybe, he decided, he wouldn't make her into a puppet. She was too annoying, and he didn't want to see her face. Maybe he'd just cut her up and burn what was left of her body, so he'd never have to look on that annoying face again. It'd be easy, too—her body was no doubt weakened from the poison, and would continue to deteriorate until she was at his utter mercy.

His smile became a little cruel, showing a hint of emotion for the second time.

Chiyo unfurled the scroll, revealing gradually ten drawn black diamonds filled with a number of symbols; and watching as Hakkar's priests charged towards her, drawing weapons of all manners from their persons—a huge spear, a wicked-looking hammer, a pair of long blades, the claws and the whip, all glinting with the black poison that Sasori so loved. She took a deep breath, and for the final time before she ended Sasori's miserable life, she glanced over towards Sakura's body, to see the final reminder of her failure as a shinobi and a person, before she died.

But the girl was gone, and only a pool of drying blood remained.

And just as she realized that, Sasori did too. There was but a hint of movement at his side—so slight and quick that he registered it a second too late, when a blood-covered fist struck his stomach, making an oddly hollow, almost wooden sound, followed by a violent cracking. A pulse of _chakra_ strong enough to crumple steel then slammed into him, and he pitched forwards in the second before he flew backwards, meeting the eyes of his attacker. They were green, and stared at him above bloody tear tracks, and were filled with fury unclouded by pain or delirium. Then the world blurred and spun, righting itself in a white, dizzying flash when he slammed with stone-breaking force into the wall of the cave.

Haruno Sakura stood up straight, as Sasori's puppets crumpled to the ground from the sudden loss of the _chakra _strings controlling them. She looked awful—her body was covered in blood, staining her skin red and making her hair matted and sticky. The blood vessels in her eyes had burst, filling the whites with red. There were trails of blood from her nose and eyes that looked like the ghastly face paint of some foreign tribe. One arm hung limply by her side, and the other was up and clenched into a tight, bloody fist. She looked like a demon, with that face and those eyes staring with unbridled hate at Sasori, as he lay in a pile of broken rock by the wall.

But when she turned to Chiyo, her face changed. She gave the tired old woman a confident and kind smile, if only for a moment, that reminded her of the smile Chiyo herself had given the girl just before their first attack. She was suddenly so happy to see the girl that she wanted to hug her and laugh with joy and relief at her survival. Such a sudden swelling of emotion nearly dazzled her, so she merely stared, in awe and elation, at Sakura's apparent resurrection.

It hit her, then, with the same force that Sakura's fist had hit Sasori—_Nouha Sayuu._

'_She hadn't released the technique,'_ she suddenly realized. '_Did she destroy the disease as it infected her, and use the chance to spring a trap on Sasori?'_

Sasori stared. He couldn't believe it. That wasn't possible! Corrupted Blood was completely fatal to any who struck it! And even if this girl had somehow managed to survive the damage it had done, she had lost enough blood to kill her. He tried to rise, but found his body unsteady and hard to move. The punch had done a lot of damage, he realized.

"Chiyo-baasama," Sakura said, suddenly. It was a wonder to hear her voice. "That's not Sasori's real body."

Chiyo quashed her emotion as swiftly as an unneeded match. "What?"

"When I hit him, I hit something hard, like the puppet he was in before. I don't think that's him either. It might be a puppet look-alike or something, but I know that's not Sasori, or else he wouldn't have survived that hit."

A brief observation of the fallen man made Chiyo immediately agree. The damage done to the rock wall was so severe that no normal person could have gotten up after causing it. In fact, no normal person should have been able to cause it—it would have reduced them to a bloody pulp long before that amount of rock was shattered, and Sasori looked almost completely intact. However, what bothered her was the fact that Sakura's hit hadn't completely annihilated the puppet that looked like her grandson. It had to be that either its body was exceptionally tougher than the others, or that Sakura had been severely weakened.

"How did you survive?" Sasori asked. "That isn't possible."

"I flushed out the disease. It doesn't seem to be able to survive long in air, or this entire room would have been infected already. I forced out as much blood as possible, and used my _chakra_ to kill the remaining virus particles in my body, and then boosted my blood cell creation rate." She spat red saliva onto the ground. "You obviously don't know your own creation that well. Since I had to force the blood out of my body, it's obviously not a natural occurrence—and because you didn't comment, you obviously have never seen it kill someone." She smirked coldly. "You obviously don't know your own toys very well, huh?"

Sasori stared at the girl, narrowing his eyes. What an annoying girl she was. She even had the gall to make fun of him like that! She wasn't going to get away so easily. Neither of them would. He decided that he'd have to take care of this himself. He'd make sure that this girl didn't survive another round. He stood straight up, and reached for the collar of his cloak, beginning to undo it.

"You're half right, girl. This body isn't made of flesh and bone. It is, however my—"

'**_Stop.'_**

Sasori stopped. He glanced around, unsure if the word had been spoken aloud or in his mind.

'**_This fight is over.'_**

"You," he whispered aloud. "What do you want?"

'**_I'm telling you to leave. This fight will not continue. Act like a shinobi, Sasori—not a samurai. You're overconfident, and as that girl has proven, it will cost you dearly if you continue this fight. You are still a member of Akatsuki, and hence, you still have a job to do. You can't die just yet, Sasori. Remember what I told you.'_**

Sasori narrowed his eyes at the invisible specter, lowering his hand. He stood for a moment in complete silence, drawing two mystified looks from Chiyo and Sakura. He then sighed heavily, extending both hands.

"Fine. I guess I have to forgo the more interesting play at this point. It seems I have other things to do, Chiyo-baa, Leaf girl. I'm sorry that I cannot stay. We'll have to finish this show another time." His fingers began moving, and the six priests suddenly leapt to their feet, and abandoned their attack on Chiyo. They fled immediately to where the giant one stood, atop the fallen blood god's back, forming a rough circle around him. The big one then stretched out his arms, while the others placed their hands on Hakkar's body. The scales began to shift around the big puppet, and something emerged beneath him, rising up and lifting him above all the rest. It was a giant idol of a winged snake, carved crudely from a light-colored wood, and covered in head to tail in explosive notes. A door on the big puppet's chest suddenly opened, as did plates on its arms and legs and head—all revealing explosive notes of varying sizes and intensities.

The big puppet then began to shake, for no apparent reason.

To Sakura, it was laughing.

"I'm sorry we couldn't finish this, Chiyo-baa," Sasori said, in a soft lament. "Maybe next time."

Chiyo stared one last time at Sasori, her eyes wide. He was giving her a pleasant smile, in structure like those he used to give her, but in spirit more horrible than ever before. She gazed at the ghastly perversion of a man he had become, and realized for the last time, that Sakura was right.

This man was but a puppet.

This was not her grandson.

Her grandson was a man of thirty-five, with hair like his father's and a smile like his mother's. He was a dutiful, kind and loyal man who fought for his village with everything he had, to avenge the deaths of his parents as well as to keep the spirit of the village alive. That was what her grandson should have been.

But this thing before her now looked as a boy of fifteen, with cold, glossy eyes and an emotionless smile. This was some cruel demon; he had merely taken the face of her grandson, nothing more.

That was it.

Her grandson was already dead.

He had been dead for twenty years.

So when Sasori vanished in a flicker of movement, she did not lament his departure. Nor she did look forward to the next meeting, where she might finally destroy the imposter who had taken her grandson's form.

Because she knew that that time would never come.

"Next time?" she whispered softly. "I guess you truly don't understand, do you?" No he didn't, she realized. He never did. He never would. That was his crippling, horrible weakness. He would never understand life or death, because he could experience neither. He was not truly alive, just as he was not truly dead.

God, what a fool she was.

Sakura was suddenly in front of her, shouting at her that they needed to leave. She looked into the girl's eyes, which despite being covered in blood, glittered with a beautiful inner fire. They longed for life, as Chiyo's once had. They longed for everything Sakura had not yet experienced. This girl was in the prime of her life—the true prime, not just physical, but the prime when life still has so much to give a person. A time Sasori had never had. It had been taken from him, or perhaps he had squandered it himself.

And that was true beauty, true art; that passion for life that Chiyo would not let end here.

It was something that no human hands could capture or create.

'_But I tried,'_ she thought, softly. '_And I failed. Forgive me, my son, my daughter; forgive me for I could not give you back that life that was so cruelly stolen. I was just like him. I didn't understand either. Not until now.'_

She smiled at Sakura, glad that she could see that face full of life again. It was the most beautiful thing in the world.

She unfurled the gleaming white scroll, labeled _Chikamatsu_, roaring into the air as the explosive notes on Hakkar's biggest priest and the idol he stood upon ignited, and exploded.

The air was filled with a bright, shining light, and then came sound, all the sound in the world, it seemed, compressed into a single burst.

And then there was nothing.

'_Ah, youth.'_

* * *

Kakashi was thrown backwards by the explosion—at the very last moment, he had jumped back with all his power, creating a vast distance between him and the fatal range of the explosion. But the force knocked him back even farther, causing him to crash into the side of the cliff, feeling the rocks beneath him hammer into his bones and pierce his skin. The world twirled and spun, making him unable to move for a short while. In that time, Deidara put some distance between him and the silver-haired man, and he began searching the waters for Naruto.

Yet, the blonde had effectively vanished.

His eyepiece whirred and spun, seeking out any possible place for the blonde to hide—there was none. He cursed, reaching up and pressing a button on the side. The view changed. Everything turned a hazy red, making in nearly difficult to distinguish one thing from another. It was a thermal sensor. He rarely used it, as he never usually given so much trouble by an offending shinobi. But it revealed nothing—the blonde was gone, as if he had never been.

He looked down at Kakashi again. The silver-haired man was staring back at him, but had covered his eye again. Deidara smirked triumphantly—obviously, it was too draining for him to continue using. He decided to kill the man as swiftly as he could; things left unfinished nearly always came back to bite.

He began molding another model, guiding his bird lower, towards Kakashi. He'd make it a big one, so this guy didn't have any chance of dodging. He looked at Kakashi again. The man hadn't moved, and was continuing to glare up at him, the silver fox standing almost complacently by his side.

Now Deidara was confused. Why was this man not trying to attack, or even escape? He frowned, his body tensing. A trap, maybe? Was he waiting for something? He looked around below, searching again for any sign of the wayward blonde boy.

Then, there was a sudden prickling in the back of his neck, and he felt his cloak ruffle, even though there was no wind blowing. He whipped around. Naruto was there, half sunk in a dark pool that was Deidara's own _shadow_, clutching a glowing, spinning sphere of _chakra_ in his palm. His eyes were narrowed in deadly determination, and sprung forwards, his hand pulling back, mouth opening in a loud battle cry.

'_Rasengan!'_

Deidara dropped the model he was holding, and thrust out his hand. It struck right atop Naruto's outthrust palm, the mouth engulfing the sphere of _chakra_ in a single impressive bite, and quenching it as swiftly as a candle flame. He locked hands with the blonde, as Naruto's eyes widened and the sound died in his throat. Deidara then grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket, tasting the odd leather in his hand-mouth. He grinned triumphantly.

"Got you…yeah!" he said, sneering. "You're an odd one, aren't you? I didn't expect a _jinchuuriki_ to be like you at all. They're supposed to be loathsome creatures that hate people and are hated by everyone. The other two were, at least…yeah!"

Naruto struggled to pull away, but Deidara had an impressive grip for someone so slight. He never once, however, broke eye contact with the man. Deidara was a little unnerved by the boy's eyes—they were so powerful and demanding; they were the eyes of a true warrior. They reminded him strangely of the _okashira_ in that intensity, and that unnerved him even more. So he decided to end it right then. He wrenched Naruto's hand downward, and then lifted him off his feet. He released his grip on Naruto's hand for but a moment, and then grabbed him again on the forearm, hissing into the blonde's ear: "I hope you weren't using this arm…yeah. It's going to become my art."

But in that very second, with the words just leaving his lips—a terrible, fiery pain exploded within his stomach, making him release all holds on Naruto's body. He fell back, stunned, glancing down to see the hilt of Naruto's sword sticking from the side of his stomach, buried in so deep that no hint of steel could be seen. The blade lanced up straight through his innards, cutting through muscle and small intestine, emerging with a flood of blood from the man's lower back. The wound was worse than losing an arm, due to the nerves and organs, and so even Deidara found himself unable to bear the pain. But his cry was cut short by a geyser of choking blood leaping into his throat, making him gag and throw it up all over his mouth and cloak. Added to this was Naruto's sudden, violent kick—which struck him in the face and sent him careening off the modeled bird. He fell, perhaps four or so dozen feet, crashing through the canopy of a tree and then a series of branches—each one cracking beneath his weight but damaging him equally. He finally hit the ground—which was thankfully soft—nearly passing out as he did, as whatever air remained in his lungs was violently forced out.

Deidara's mount fell, no longer controlled by its master—Naruto immediately summoned a clone, which grabbed Gaara's body as it tumbled from the creature's mouth. Both of them then _air-grasped_ down, landing neatly on the branches of a particularly tall tree.

Kakashi watched them fall. He silently praised Naruto, leaping across the gorge and scaling the wall in great bounds, Tsuwabuki speeding ahead of him almost immediately. When they reached the trees above, Tsuwabuki led him to Naruto's tree. Kakashi appeared on the branch a few seconds later, making only two jumps to get there.

The blonde was staring at Gaara, who lay limp in his hands. The Kazekage's eyes were closed, peacefully. But his face was frozen in a mask that Kakashi knew would rend Naruto's heart—it was a look of utter agony, not from pain, but from the most awful feeling that someone like Naruto could feel.

Loneliness.

Naruto stared down at Gaara with sad, soft eyes. He felt numb. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He couldn't be dead. Not now. Not when…when life was beginning to make sense to him. When it was beginning to mean something. Tears long thought dried came to his eyes, but he did nothing to push them away.

"Kakashi-sensei," he said, softly.

"Hmm?" Kakashi said.

"Look after Gaara, for me, would you?"

"Fine."

"Thanks."

Naruto bounded from the tree, disappearing into the dark forest beneath.

Deidara managed to stand.

Everything was dizzy and his vision was clouded. This was the first time he had been on the verge of death for a long time, he realized. Not since the initiation rite, that is. But even then, he didn't remember it being like this. '_Damn that brat,'_ he thought. '_How did he do that? That sword was behind him, out of his reach! How did he…" _He barely heard those thoughts, the pain coming in surging waves, each one leaving him more fatigued, closer to unconsciousness. He had managed to get the sword out, at least. But it didn't make sense. How had the brat called the blade to him? Was it like Kisame's sword, bound to his will and _chakra_ source?

Partly. Though he did not know it, the wound, while dealt by Naruto, had been Mekkatorque's work in reality. For on the hilt of the blade, as well as Naruto's wrist, there was a new device, just for Naruto. The High Tinker had come up with the plans for it just after Naruto had left him, years ago. He had left it aside, to focus on rebuilding Gnomeregan, but had returned to it every so often, when a minute became free. It consisted of two parts—a wristwatch like device that Naruto possessed, and a smaller device that attached to the end of his sword. It formed a small connection between Naruto and the blade—a small _chakra_ string, which could never be cut, and allowed Naruto to control the weapon from afar to a certain degree. He could draw it to him from great distances, or control its movement in flight. He had had little time to experiment with it, but that had not truly mattered—Naruto was the type to learn as he went in battle, and so far it had been a splendid success.

But Deidara did not know this, and hence cursed and raged and wondered how the blonde had gotten the jump on him. He had never been so injured before in his life. And God, how he hated that brat!

'_Why isn't that potion working?'_ he thought. The troll's blood potion was supposed to have continual effects for up to an hour. He should be healing at this point. The damage was enormous, however, and thus it probably had a lot to regenerate. He bit back a snarl in his throat, gripping his wounded stomach. He'd have to speed it up then. That boy would probably be here soon. He dug for some clay in his cloak, letting a hand-mouth devour it. He then placed it over his wound.

'_Doton: Tsuchidaigeki!'_

Then the ground exploded beneath him, and despite the awful pain it brought, he was forced to leap into the trees, landing unsteadily on a branch. He glanced down. Naruto stood there, his palm planted in the earth. He was glaring up at Deidara with a renewed bestial rage. He leapt after the man, making seals as he went.

'_Raiton: Raikousa!'_

A bolt of lightning erupted from Naruto's fingertips, streaking towards Deidara. The man avoided it by jumping off his perch, and falling to the ground, right next to his fallen mount. He glanced at it. The lightning struck the tree he had once been standing on, causing little damage. But Naruto was already reorganizing his attack, and had propelled himself downwards with a burst of air, both hands drawn back, each one clutching a glowing sphere of _chakra_.

Deidara danced behind the tree. Naruto pursued in a blink, appearing behind the man before Deidara could react. Deidara spun, but could barely get off a shout before both spiraling spheres slammed into his back in an explosion of light and power.

'_Rasengan!'_

The _chakra_ tore into Deidara's flesh, and propelled him forwards, into the tree and through it too. The _chakra_ bit like a thousand _kunai_ striking a single place, and send waves more of it through Deidara's body, cutting into everything within. The force was so strong that even after flying through the tree, he continue for a few more yards, skidding across the ground, rolling, and finally stopping as the tree struck the ground behind him with a rumbling boom.

Deidara lay still.

Naruto strode towards the fallen body. He drew a _kunai_ as he did, his teeth biting down so hard they looked at risk of cracking. He stopped behind the man, breathing heavily, staring down at Deidara, his hand up and ready to attack. This man would die. He continued to stare, waiting, almost praying, for the man to move again.

But he did not.

Deidara was dead.

And for one fierce moment, Naruto felt a surge of delight in seeing the man's fallen body, knowing that he had caused it. Knowing that he had killed this man. It was an awful, disgusting, violent feeling—and yet it felt so delightful and so justified that Naruto reveled in it.

"Naruto-kun!"

Naruto turned at the voice, and the feeling passed. From the trees emerged Hinata, Kiba, Shino and Kurenai, all looking bruised and battle-worn, but alive and apparently well. Hinata's face was a mask of relief, which Naruto felt a little glad to see, but more sad. But he did not even bother trying to smile, that was too hard.

It was over but Gaara was still gone.

"You guys all right?" Kakashi appeared a moment later as well, the clone of Naruto carrying Gaara's limp form trailing sadly behind him. Hinata gasped at the sight, Shino froze, and Kiba stared in an open mixture of horror and rage.

"H-hey! Is he…?" The question was rather unnecessary, and even Kiba knew it. From the look on Naruto's face, the truth could not be plainer. The mission had failed. Kiba visibly sunk, his face sagging, his eyes downcast. Akamaru whimpered, nuzzling his partner's leg. Shino lowered his head, and pushed his glasses closer to his face, as if to further hide the pain within them. Hinata closed her eyes, trying to stop the tears that would flow—not only from seeing Gaara's silent body, but also from seeing the agony on Naruto's face. Naruto's friends suddenly became awash with feelings of such despair that it was almost staggering. Hinata began openly crying, silently, as she stared at Naruto, who looked sadder than all of them, at least in his eyes. His presence had the same effect, no matter what emotion he felt; if he were optimistic and cheerful, he would inspire others to be as well—but if he was as depressed as now, then so were they.

"There's nothing more we can do," Kakashi said, breaking the soft, mournful, dreadful silence. "We'd best get to Sakura and Chiyo—they may need our help."

Kurenai nodded. She looked masked her own despair, and nodded to her students. "You heard him. We'll go now."

"What about him?" Shino asked. He nodded to Deidara's ruined form.

"He's right," said Kakashi. "Even though it's only a corpse, there's a lot of information we can get from it. We should bring it with us, those in Konoha will be able to do something with it. Though this is a monumental failure, we can perhaps yet snatch victory from it." Kakashi sighed, as if not truly believing his own words. "It will tell us a lot about Akatsuki, and that will be of great aid to us in the future. We'll be able to prevent," he glanced at Naruto, "this from happening again."

Naruto caught the look, and nodded softly. He made a seal, softly whispering a few words under his breath. Two clones appeared, and with a wave he directed them to pick up their new cargo. As they bent down to pull him up, there was a sudden movement—more than a death twitch—and Deidara's head suddenly spun completely around so that it stared up at them with one wide eye and a leering, evil smile.

"Yeah right! Here's the last piece, bastards! Enjoy!" He gave a single, horrifying laugh, as his body suddenly began to swell up, becoming grotesquely huge in only a few seconds. Kakashi roared an order to run, realizing what the man was about to do.

They ran. Naruto could have easily outstripped them all, yet he hung back, behind all of them, perhaps to see that they all survived, and perhaps to keep an eye on his precious cargo—Gaara's body. He gave a final glance back, where Deidara had become something like a gargantuan balloon animal, smiling and laughing in the most horrible way. Naruto wanted nothing more than for that laughter to end.

'_We're not going to make it!'_ Kakashi thought. He put on a burst of speed, just as a white-hot blast of wind, followed by an ear-splitting boom, erupted behind him. He glanced back; and as the explosion rushed towards them, realized that it would completely consume them, killing them all without fail.

"Kakashi-sensei, Naruto, everyone! Get into a circle!"

The voice hit them from the front, and a moment later, their saviors came into sight. Sakura, soaked from head to toe in dried blood; and Chiyo, surrounded by ten, white-robed figures, stood before them. They immediately obeyed, streaking towards the small group as the white-robed figures spread out in a large circle to accommodate them. When they were all within the circle, Chiyo raised her hands, the figures leapt in front of them, forming a long, ten-man wall. They clasped their hands together before them, as if about to pray, as long, wing-like blades erupted from their backs, springing straight up. It that same moment, the explosion hit them.

But nothing happened.

No flames consumed them, boiled their skin or tore them to pieces. The flames parted, as a crowd of subjects does to an emperor. They stood, shocked, as the flames surrounded their small party, not burning or injuring or even singing a single hair on their heads. Chiyo stood at the head of them, laughing with everything she had left. It was not a joyful sound, or a humorous one.

It sounded almost sad.

But nobody would find the meaning behind that laughter. Save two perhaps, but they would never speak it aloud.

It was her final mark on this world. Yes. She knew it now. She knew what had to be done. Youth was something to be treasured in this world. And she would be damn sure that those that deserved to cherish it did. That would be her final gift. Yes. They would have been proud of that.

Even if it only meant saving one life, instead of three.

* * *

Burning Crusade rocks or what? That's what I've been doing with most of my time this week.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter—it was a lot of fun to write, for some reason. I know you guys are sick and tired of me basically copying the story arc from Naruto Part 2 (or Naruto: Shipuuden, as they are planning to call it) but I found it enjoyable for two reasons—one, it allowed me to write and keep alive one of my favorite characters in Naruto: Sasori; and two, it allowed me to go a bit deeper into Chiyo's mind, as I saw it. She's old and haggard, and knows she doesn't have much time left in this world, and so originally she hoped to use what was left of that life to kill Sasori. But this arc reveals to her that there is something else she must do with her remaining life, and how wrong she has been all this time. She's a fun character, I think, and I liked exploring the relationship she had with Sasori and her son and daughter-in-law a little bit more. I did it less directly than intended, but I still think it came off well, don't you?

And before you guys start complaining about Sakura's sudden revival—it's not that unbelievable. It just shows how truly powerful the technique she created is. A lot of you should have seen that coming, anyways. It would not be more realistic for her to die here, any more than it would somewhere else. She was not intended to die here, ever. No matter what anybody says, I do like Sakura (she's one of my favorite characters), and I _will_ give her a fighting chance for Naruto's heart, if it remains a one-pairing story. Yes, there has been build up for the Naruto-Kira pairing, all of the last story, but that will just make it more interesting, and more troublesome, for Naruto to eventually choose, should he have to.

Wow. Don't know what got into me. Sorry for the rant, and for those of you who actually read it, congratulations and thank you!

The next story arc will be great, I hope. The storyline from this point on (well, maybe just a little more in the next chapter) will be totally original. I promise you that.

See you next week!

General Grievous

_**Scroll of Seals:**_

_Doton: Tsuchidaigeki (Earth Release: Earth Shock)_

_Raiton: Raikousa (Lightning Release: Connected Lightning)_

_Jibaku Bunshin (Suicide Bombing Clone)?_

_Shiro Higi: Jikki Chikamatsu no Shuu (White Secret Technique: Ten Puppet Collection of Chikamatsu)_

_**Weapons Pouch:**_

_Gnomish Weapon Puppet Device_

_Exploding Clay_

_Poison Antidote_

_**Bingo Book:**_

_**Akasuna no Sasori (S-Class)(Humanoid/Mechanical)(Boss)**_


	8. Life and Death

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naluto or Wolrd of Walclaft**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Naruto stared down at Gaara. They all did. The boy lay on the only remaining patch of grass for almost a mile. All around them was a field of charcoal and ash, the many tall trees and thick undergrowth had been destroyed in a single, catastrophic explosion. They had given it a quick once over, but found that there was nothing. Deidara's body had been completely obliterated, taking with it the secrets of the Akatsuki. Kakashi did not mourn too long over the loss, for it still meant they had one less Akatsuki member to deal with in the future.

Gaara's face was still in agony, Naruto realized. He was dead, and supposed to be at peace in that death. But still he felt agony. Still he felt the lingering, dreadful pain that he had experienced all his life, as Naruto had. That crushing, agonizing loneliness. The knowledge that one was completely alone in the world. It just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that he should have to experience that. He, of all people, deserved peace. Peace that most people could achieve by simply drifting off to sleep every night; a peace Gaara had never been able to attain in life.

The others crowded around, and stared with equal despair at both Naruto and Gaara. What made up their despair was, however, different than what made up Naruto's. They had never experienced the same feeling of terrible loneliness that Naruto had. They had never been brushed off as he and Gaara had, looked at with the same disgust that one would look at a piece of shit on the bottom of one's shoe; they had never had the feeling of being so alone and outcast that even the word "human" didn't seem to apply to them. And so it was because not only was Gaara dead, a person whom few of them had known well, but because they couldn't truly feel what Naruto was feeling, or understand how hard it was for him. They couldn't understand the absolutely disgusting feeling that had driven Gaara to near insanity, and that was now torturing him in death.

When Hinata looked at Gaara, she saw two people. She saw the leering demon that had murdered those shinobi during the _Chuunin Exams_; and she saw the boy that Naruto could relate with, for some reason or another, a boy that forced Naruto to kill an S-Class missing-nin to rescue. A boy who meant so much to Naruto that it caused him so much pain to see him dead that it made her heart ache as well. She despaired not only for Gaara, but also for Naruto.

Neither Shino nor Kiba had known Gaara at all well. They too remembered the horrible monster he had been before he had fought Naruto; but they then remembered the silent, calm young man they had met in the hospital during Kiba's recovery from his fight with the Sound-nins Ukon and Sakon. They also remembered meeting with him, courtesy of Sakura, after they had both become _Chuunin_, and how remarkably human he had become. He had been an all right guy, they decided. And he seemed to care for Naruto as well, from what Sakura had told them. Now he was dead.

Kurenai and Kakashi felt much the same. They knew little about Gaara as a person, but their knowledge of the demon within him, as well as the Kyuubi within Naruto, allowed them to recognize the powerful connection Naruto had with him. Kakashi realized that Naruto had found someone who truly understood him—Gaara had experienced the exact same childhood Naruto had, far more so than Sasuke. Losing Gaara was, to Naruto, like losing a brother. Or even a part of himself.

Sakura was openly crying tinted-red tears. She had perhaps known Gaara best of all. While she did not understand the true, ghastly pain that Naruto did, she felt as if she had lost a dear friend, even though she had only spent a few days with Gaara after the past _Chuunin Exams. _In that time she had gotten to know him, even if she could never understand him in the way Naruto did. It was an even greater blow to her heart than when Sasuke had left.

Because she knew, that no matter what she did, or how strong she got, she could never bring Gaara back.

Tsuwabuki whimpered at the feeling of deep sadness coming from Naruto. It was horrible to feel such dark, painful emotion. It was hard to distinguish from her own, because it was so terribly powerful, like all of Naruto's emotions. She sidled up to her partner, as if bracing him for a fall. She lowered her head. She felt like crying, which was strange, because she couldn't technically cry.

But Chiyo did not understand anything.

She regarded Gaara as the result of her final duty to the Sand. A _jinchuuriki_, a weapon. She had never known Gaara as a person, only as a whispered presence among the streets of the Sand—like a feared curse or the rumors of some impending threat; or something Kankuro or Temari mentioned during their frequent meetings with Chiyo and her brother, when they had been kids. When he had become Kazekage, that hadn't changed, only he had become a bit more frequently—and fondly—mentioned. For the longest time, she had never considered him anything other than a tool to be used against the other villages.

But people did not cry for a tool.

She looked around. She saw, with her newfound ability to _care_, at the sadness, rage, confusion, and hollowness that was all reflected in the eyes of everyone who stared down at Gaara's limp form. But what most arrested her eyes were Naruto's. They somehow managed to reflect an inner emotional power that was staggering to behold. Naruto seemed to be feeling enough sadness for a hundred people. She looked at Gaara, and for the first time, she saw something she had never seen before.

A person.

And in seeing him like that, she saw too the reason for why they despaired.

"Dammit," Naruto whispered harshly. His voice drew everyone's stares to him. He now knelt by the red-haired boy's body, his hands gripping the earth tightly. "Who the hell…decided that Gaara had to suffer like this?"

Nobody answered. They couldn't.

"Gaara never had a chance to do anything. He had suffered all his life, and just when things were about to look up—just when he had finally been able to win the respect of his people, and had started making friends…" Naruto trailed off for a while, clenching his powerful eyes shut. "Just when he fulfilled his dream...why the hell does life let something like that happen? Gaara barely even started to live, and now he's gone! Just what does it take? What does it take for life to be fair to you? Why the hell does he keep getting the short end of the stick?"

Again, nobody could answer.

"Gaara…he…he's dead. He'd just…started living. He still had so much to do. He still had a people to…people who finally needed him! Needed him as a person, not as a weapon! And he didn't even…"

He didn't even die surrounded by his friends, knowing that they cared for him.

He had died alone, believing that he had always been destined to.

Sakura wiped bloodstained tears from her face. She knew that it was above all, most cruel to Naruto. He and Gaara were so alike, and both, in the end, had had the same dream. Gaara had achieved it, for but a brief moment, and then had lost it. Would the same be true of Naruto? Would he continue reaching as high as he could, and when he finally grasped that dream, have it crumble like dust through his fingers? She knew he was thinking that. She knew that Gaara's death would be, above all, the greatest fork in Naruto's path of life. The greatest wound of the soul; the greatest doubt. If Naruto were not strong enough, then it would mean the ruin of his dream, and perhaps his life, too.

Chiyo felt a tightening in her chest. She knelt down beside his limp body.

"So this boy," she said, softly. "Really means that much, huh?"

Naruto's powerful eyes flickered to her. She met them squarely.

"Gaara was never more than a tool to me. I regarded him a means to destroy our enemies, and make the Sand strong. But I…have seen many things in these past few days. One of those is a boy who has fought harder than any other for the sake of someone who rules an entirely different village, one that used to be an enemy. I did not think it was possible for someone to care so much for someone from another village." She heaved a great sigh.

"I did not realize that Gaara meant so much to so many. Perhaps I simply didn't care. I didn't care because I only cared about myself, and my life, and had long forgotten what it truly meant to believe in one's village. I had lost faith in life." She laughed mournfully. "In these past few days, I have regained that faith. I have too, regained faith in my village; and I have been awarded faith in others as well. The Leaf," she glanced at Kakashi particularly when she said this, "I once hated. I once despised every man, woman and child that village saw fit to churn out. I did this because they took my son. But I made that pathetic, fatal error that no doubt many of them had made for us. Instead of hating the one who killed my son, I hated all of them. I saw them all as the one who killed my son, and took from me my life.

"But that isn't so, is it? I think perhaps it was what you said, boy," she looked at Naruto again, "that made me think otherwise. I saw and heard that you cared for Gaara as if he were a brother to you. And you fought and nearly killed yourself trying to rescue him, something that I would never have done were I in your position. And I have fought alongside someone who perhaps cared equally as much for my safety. And through her actions, I have realized what a fool I have been."

She looked back down at Gaara, and held out both hands, placing them on the boy's chest, right over his heart.

"I have realized what a precious thing youth is. My time in this world is over. I think it is time for those who think like you; like Gaara; like all of those who support him and fight for his causes, to take over this world, and fix it. We old timers have screwed it up pretty bad," she laughed again as she said this, "and it's up to the young to unscrew it, and give order back to it. So that people like me eventually cease to be. So that such disgusting prejudices…never occur again." She shook her head. "What a time to have such an epiphany, hmm?"

She then smiled. "An old bat for a young brat. It is time for this world to change."

A glowing, brilliantly green light erupted from her fingertips, spreading out across Gaara's torso and then his body, wrapping it in a verdant aura. Sakura stared, wondering what she was trying to do—was it medical _ninjutsu_? That wouldn't work. What was she doing?

Kakashi pushed up his forehead protector. The _chakra_ was strange—thicker, deeper, stronger than any he had seen before. It took him a moment more to realize that it was not _chakra_ at all.

"Chiyo-baa…what're you…?"

"I wanted to give Sasori back all that he had lost," she said, breathless. "I wanted to give him back his life, at the exchange of mine. So I created this technique, which is the desire of all true puppeteers. We create a crude manufacture of it, and control it, but this technique finally realizes it. This technique brings life. It is _Tensei Ninjutsu_."

"But you will…" said Kakashi, stunned. "You will die."

Chiyo smiled crookedly, sweat running down her brow. "Is that so? I am prepared. I told you that this world needed to change. I will bring this change by giving Gaara back his life—which I now know will benefit more than just the Sand."

Naruto stared wide-eyed at the woman. "You," he breathed. "Are gonna bring him back to life?"

"Of course."

"You're going to give him back his dream…?" Naruto whispered, as if he could not believe it.

Chiyo smiled. "Of course."

Naruto crawled closer to her, his heart pumping fast. He was staring down at Gaara's glowing body, and the wrinkled hands that gripped it, over the heart. He then looked at Chiyo again, seeing the strain on her face, and in her eyes. She looked back at him.

"Boy," she said.

"What?" Naruto asked.

"Help Gaara change this world, will you? You're already his friend. But I want you to help him change the Sand, the Leaf and everything in between."

Naruto gave her the ghost of a smile. "Yes." He paused. "Because his dream is mine too. I want to become Hokage." He said the words with evident disbelief.

"Then _become _Hokage," she said. "And be the best damn one there ever has been. You have the spirit for it, and the attitude, as well. Promise me that."

Naruto looked into her eyes with every bit of that incredible spirit. "I promise." The words had never been said with as much force as they had then.

"Sakura," Chiyo turned to the bloodied girl, her face no softer. "I cannot ask this of you in good conscience, but I feel that you are the only one that can understand. I want you to kill Sasori. I want you to…" she coughed, more life draining from her eyes. "I want you to destroy him utterly. He cannot be allowed to live any longer…I promised them. Please." Her eyes half closed, were now filled with tears.

"Please," she said, softly. "Please."

Fresh tears spilled down Sakura's face. She couldn't stop them. And she couldn't refuse the old woman's words.

"I promise," she said.

Chiyo smiled. "Thank you."

The light began to fade, and Chiyo began to slump in her seat. Finally, she gave a shuddering breath, and fell back, making Sakura cry out and grab her. Chiyo's eyes were just mere slits now, with two wet trails down both cheeks. But she was smiling in that same crinkled, almost beautiful smile that Sakura had seen for the first time mere hours ago.

"One last thing…" she said, softly, glancing up at Sakura with that crooked smile. "Tell my brother that I'm…not faking this time…"

Her vision swam. Sakura's tearful eyes and face slowly faded, though Naruto's eyes lingered a little longer. She smiled in the emotion they showed her, like bright, burning blue stars.

And as her vision darkened, she saw someone else, hovering above her. It was a child, with red hair and a smiling, porcelain countenance. There were two other figures there, too. One stood on his left, the other his right, and both were hugging him tightly, both smiling in the same loving fashion as he. She laughed softly again. The boy looked at her with his kind, beautiful, life-filled eyes. Yes. There he was. There they were, as she had expected.

Her eyes closed.

* * *

Gaara eyes opened.

He was in a bed, surrounded by whitewashed walls and the distinct smell of disinfectant and misery that usually accompanies hospitals. There was an intense, bright light above him, making him immediately shut his eyes once more. He then slowly opened them in a squint, and saw a group of shadows above him. His first hazy thought was that he was still in the throws of that strange _jutsu_ of the Akatsuki. But oddly, he felt no pain. He felt comfortable, warm, safe.

"Hey, little bro," whispered a voice above him, feminine, kind, almost motherly despite its jocular tone. "Stop being lazy. It's time to get up."

"Yeah," another voice said, more a snort. "You don't wanna disappoint your fans. They may start rioting."

Gaara's eyes fully opened, and there they were. Temari and Kankuro, both smiling in that warm, affectionate way only family members can; Kankuro wasn't wearing his hood, or his face paint, so the expression of relief and joy on his face was far more noticeable and profound; Temari wore her normal clothes and was smiling so widely that her eyes were hidden in a Naruto-like squint.

"Temari…?" Gaara whispered. "Kankuro…?" He raised a hand, though it was hard. His arms felt stiff and cracked with every slight movement. Temari visibly winced with each one. He finally was able to touch his forehead, almost surprised when he felt the skin. He struggled to sit, producing more cracks, and Temari and Kankuro immediately came to his aid. When he was finally up, he saw that Temari and Kankuro were not the only ones in the room.

"Sakura-san…?" he whispered.

"Naruto…?"

The pink-haired girl gave Gaara a kind smile from across the room. She sat in a chair by the door, dressed in a white t-shirt and black pants, her left arm in a sling. Naruto sat next to her, grinning.

"Yo!" Naruto said. "You're up! It's about time!"

"We were worried," said Sakura. "You slept the entire way back."

"Back…?" his eyes widened. "But what happened…?" He didn't understand.

"That's for later," said Temari, grabbing him on the arm. "But you've got a few people you need to see."

Gaara turned, looking at her in surprise. "What?"

Kankuro took his other arm, neither responding, and helped him out of bed. Then, arm in arm, they led him slowly across the floor, to the door that Naruto had just opened. They led him down the hall, took the elevator down to the first floor, and then led him through the lobby of the hospital, which was deserted. Naruto and Sakura followed behind them.

As they neared the door, Gaara heard a great commotion outside. It sounded like the voices of a thousand people, all shouting loudly. He could not make out what they were saying—there were far too many, speaking and shouting far too many things, so it sounded like a long, roaring bellow that was not composed of words, but a feeling. But he did not know what that feeling was, for emotions and feelings were still something new to him. He flinched away, reflexively, but then realized that it did not sound angry or violent. He glanced at Temari and Kankuro, and then at Naruto, too. They were all smiling.

But it still came as a surprise to him, when he stepped out into the hot, dry air he was so accustomed to, and was greeted by thousands of faces with the same warm smile on them. And then he knew that the feeling expressed by the singular cry was not anger or disappointment.

But joy.

"Kazekage-sama!"

"He's awake!"

"He's back! Kazekage-sama! Are you alright?"

These and thousands more questions and exclamations assaulted Gaara's sensitive ears, making him wince, but he could not look away. He saw the countless faces—some familiar, like Baki, who stood at the head of the crowd, grinning like a proud father; and there was Taki and Moriki, who ran the ramen shop at the edge of town; and even the three Leaf-nin that he gotten to know better after the last _Chuunin Exams_, Hinata, Kiba and Shino. But there were many entirely new to him, which made it all the more surreal and strange. For all his life, strangers had shown him nothing but hatred, disgust, and fear. They had always avoided his path, had never spoken to him, and had ridiculed him from afar or behind his back.

But now, they were happy. Happy that he was awake, that he was back among them.

That he was alive.

That he existed.

He stared around, and realized for the first time, that people cared for him.

"Smile, my boy," a whisper came from his side, making him look sharply into the kind, grave face of Ebizo. "They want to see that you're alright."

Gaara looked at the old man, who suddenly seemed so sad, and then back at the crowd. His lips quivered and stretched, arcing upwards, until a smile that was bigger than all the rest was formed. Then he felt a curious wetness run down his cheeks, and dribble into his mouth. It was a salty taste. He was crying, he realized.

"But I'm not…" he whispered to himself, "...sad."

"Crying is for when you're happy, too, bro," said Kankuro. "And then it's okay for a man to cry—only when you're happy. Otherwise, you're a pussy."

"Shut up Kankuro," Temari said, rolling her eyes.

Gaara looked at his brother and sister, and laughed. It was a strange sound, for those who were used to hearing the maniacal roar of bloodlust he once had. But now, it sounded delightful, normal, like a sweet-sounding instrument. The cheers and roars of the crowd, of Gaara's people, soon drowned it out but it had been enough for all of them. Sakura was laughing now as well, tears streaming down her clean face. Temari smiled, and chuckled too, while Kankuro laughed and laughed until he too cried.

But Naruto laughed harder and louder than all of them.

His infectious, delightful sounding cry kept everyone else laughing for a long, long time.

* * *

Two days later, Gaara left the hospital once more, and walked alone through the bustling streets of the Sand. He wore only a simple white robe of wool, but people still greeted him kindly as he walked by. They would either bow or nod or even give him a friendly, respectful word or two. He would reply with either words or bows in kind, a little nervous with each one, but finding that it got easier after each one. He walked through the largest bazaar to get to his destination, and was mobbed by shop-owners, all holding out their wares and telling him what they were selling and its benefits and why he should choose it over the other guy. He politely declined each one. Yet, he still felt like from each one he had gotten a million yen deal.

He smiled a little more often as he did, making those who knew how rare it was for him to smile gasp in surprise at each one (or in some cases swoon). He felt totally calm; peaceful in a way that he had never felt before.

Perhaps, he thought, it was because of the sleep he had gotten the previous night.

For the first time in his life, he had gotten a decent night's rest, free of Shukaku's horrifying nightmares, which had kept him in the waking world almost all his life. It had been wonderful. Sleep was the peace he had been looking for.

When the crowds thinned and the buildings grew farther and farther apart, and he neared the massive wall that protected his village, he finally reached his destination. Tucked away in a quiet, dull corner, which he had admittedly frequented in his youth, he found a small group of people, all of whom he knew. Baki stood near the back, his head bowed, only looking up when the whispering conversations of the others ceased, to nod to his former student. Kakashi stood next to Baki, gazing calmly somewhere in front of him. Next to him was Kurenai, her arms crossed and her head bowed too. Her students—Hinata and Shino, stood in front of the adults, while the other one, Kiba, crouched with his hand resting on Akamaru's head. Sakura, Naruto, and finally his brother and sister stood next to them, leaving only a small gap between them, which he suspected was for him. Ebizo, the eldest of them all, stood at the very front, just visible over Naruto's tufts of golden hair.

"Forgive me," Gaara said, softly. "I am late."

"Don't worry about it," Temari said, in a whisper.

Gaara took his place between his brother and sister, and looked upon four small headstones, side-by-side, all identical. They were expertly crafted, but simple and befitting of those they rested over. The lettering of each was carved in elegant _kanji_, listing only the names and nothing else. Gaara did not recognize two of the names, the middle ones. The other two he did.

"Chiyo" read the first. It was the one farthest on the right, and seemed a little lonely, for it seemed to be farther away from the rest, though that could have been Gaara's imagination.

"Sasori" said the one right before him. It was strange to see, given that he knew the man still lived. He had heard everything about this man in the past two days; everything about the battle and what had happened, most prominently the chilling news which had set them all on edge.

Akatsuki had access to the other world. And it seemed they were even more knowledgeable of it than Naruto. It suddenly changed things a great deal, things that soon Gaara knew he was going to need to discuss with the Hokage.

He had even been present for Naruto's explosion at what had happened to Sakura. In all the confusion after the battles, Naruto had completely missed Sakura's frightening new appearance until halfway across the river country, whereupon he nearly dropped Gaara's healing body in surprise and began shouting in horror that she looked like she was about to die. She had assured him that she was fine, though she looked slightly uncomfortable when she said this, adjusting her bound arm. Naruto settled down, trusting her judgment (as she was the doctor) but still occasionally glancing, to the girl's annoyance, in distress at her arm. She was fine, she kept saying. It was just taking a little longer to heal. That was it.

He knew the marker in front of him—small, indistinct, seemingly the grave of a pauper instead of one of the greatest puppeteers to have ever existed—was but a symbol. If there had been further writing upon the stone, such as the date of his death, it would have been twenty years earlier.

Gaara looked back at the other grave marker, "Chiyo". He had never liked the woman. As he had learned only just recently of her involvement of the sealing of Shukaku within him, it was not that; but rather, it was her attitude. It had been the very same as his father's and the rest of the village. Had he learned in any earlier, he knew he would have killed her. They had only met a few times, and each time they had, she had given him that same look of scorn and hatred he had received so often in the streets. She had deliberately scorned him in other ways, too. She had spent much time with the young Kankuro and Temari, leaving Gaara alone most of the time.

He had hated her.

But now, how could he?

She had given her life for his. She had given him a chance to continue living in this world, with these people. She had returned to him a future, and because of that, he could no longer hate her. He knew that had he seen her face in her last few moments, he would have forgiven her for all she had done to him. She had suffered as much as he, or perhaps worse; because she had lost all of her precious people, after knowing what it was like to have them.

He stepped forwards; past Naruto, who stared at him with those powerful eyes that had allowed Gaara to become who he was now; past Kankuro and Temari, whose eyes encouraged him; past Sakura, who turned her sad eyes to him, knowing what he was going to do; past all the rest, to stand beside the old man Ebizo.

He bowed.

"Thank you."

There was silence. Gaara stepped back a little, as if to observe a reaction from the small headstone.

Ebizo chuckled, rasping and soft.

"'Do some good, brat, or I'll come back to haunt you forever,'" Ebizo said, mimicking Chiyo's voice poorly, but guffawing as well, small tears running from his eyes. "That's what she'd have said."

Temari smiled, and Kankuro laughed a little, both knowing it was true. Sakura wiped fresh tears from her eyes, trying to hold back her laughter as well.

"She'd probably have a senior moment again," Naruto muttered, with a smile, "and forget that she was dead."

"Or she'd pop up and shout, 'just kidding!'" said Kankuro, laughing louder.

"I'm still waiting for her to," Ebizo said, chuckling even louder as well. It soon became a full-blown laugh, as others added to the situation. Soon they were all laughing, and even Gaara felt he had to, just a little.

'_I will,'_ he said to her. '_I will.'_

* * *

"Old man Mekkatorque's already left?" Naruto said, frowning.

"He left yesterday, during the funeral ceremony," said Baki, calmly. "During the time you were gone, he had been fiercely gathering supplies and instructing our shinobi on the use of several devices he had brought with him, all of which are now being used to enhance our security. It is clear that he does not want something like that to happen again."

The old gnome hadn't even said goodbye. He had met Gaara on the second day after his return, fervently glad that the Kazekage was safe. He'd been pleased to hear, as well, that his new weapon for Naruto had worked out so well.

They were standing just outside the Kazekage's tower, all of the Leaf-nin along with Baki, Temari, Kankuro and Gaara. It was near noon, the air was drier than usual, and both teams were packed and ready to return to Konoha. It was to be a short word of departing, as there was a lot for all of them to do.

"He told Gaara-sama that he would be returning for only a short while. Apparently he has several things to do within his world, including gathering more supplies. He will be returning for more discussions of a possible alliance, in the future," Baki said again.

Gaara nodded in agreement.

Naruto nodded. That was fine, then.

"We'd better get going," said Kakashi, calmly. "We have three days to travel back, and I don't plan on going as fast as we did last time." He gave Naruto a look, to which the blonde nodded in embarrassment.

"We gotta come back here," said Kiba, looking around. "This place is awesome! They have so many cool things in those bazaars that I can't believe it!"

"It is a very nice place," Hinata said quietly, giving Gaara a kind smile. "I would certainly like to return."

"Agreed," Shino said.

"Take care, all of you," Sakura said, adjusting her sling. "Thanks for the clothes, Temari-san." Though she had since changed out of them, and now wore her red top, black shorts, and white skirt once more.

"Yeah," Naruto said. "We're gonna come back this way pretty soon, anyways, I think. Keep in touch with Mekkatorque-jiisan, okay? He's got a lot of good ideas, so anything you think you need help with, he could definitely help."

Gaara nodded once.

"And train a bunch! I want you to be as strong as me, when we next meet!" Naruto had flexed to prove his point, making Kankuro snort, Temari roll her eyes, Sakura sigh, Hinata swoon, Kiba frown and Shino to look as he always did—very little. But the issue of Gaara's strength was a large one, and they all knew it. Without Shukaku, it was unclear how powerful he could be.

'_I do not lament his departure,' _Gaara had said to Naruto. They were in Gaara's office, several hours after the small funeral service for Chiyo. The others had left them alone, ushered away by Sakura and Temari. _'I can…finally sleep. I can finally rest. I am no longer…what my father…intended me to be.'_

'_Yeah,'_ Naruto had said. '_But now you gotta keep working, Gaara. It's not gonna get any easier from here. You had already stopped being what your father intended you to a long time ago. Without that stupid tanuki thing, you're going to have to rely on all of your own power.'_ Naruto ran a hand through his hair_. 'It's harder than you might think. You don't have the demon to fall back to anymore. Just like me.'_

'_It will be difficult,' _Gaara had replied, with a nod. _'But in order to continue being Kazekage, I must grow strong enough to protect my village in the future. I will do whatever it takes.'_

Naruto had laughed. _'That's good. I wasn't worried, I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing.'_

Gaara had smiled. _'I do.'_ His smile had then vanished, replaced by a deep frown, from the eyes more than the face. _'But I am worried.'_

'_About what?'_

'_Akatsuki.'_

Naruto had nodded, very slowly_. 'The clay bomber told me that he and his group had already captured two more like us; or maybe one more, if he counted you. That means they only have six or seven more of us to go. What do you think they want with these things?'_

'_Power,'_ Gaara said. _'It is the only thing these creatures bring. They wish for power, and only power. I do not know what they intend to do with such power, but it cannot be good. And this information that Sakura-san brought, that they have contacts, and likely the ability to go to this other world…then that makes them even more dangerous than before.'_

'_Yeah. They have a lot of things they can do that we can't, and probably have more experience in working between the worlds. But how did they…?'_

'_I don't know. I shall have this looked into further, especially when Mekkatorque-san returns. Tsunade-sama must hear of this as well.'_

'_I was planning to tell her,'_ Naruto had said. _'But there's only so much we can do to prepare, you know? I have to tell Kira-chan about this as well. Now that these guys are in both worlds, maybe if we get help from both sides, we can stop them twice as fast.'_

'_That is advisable,'_ said Gaara. _'I shall defer to yours and Tsunade-sama's judgment concerning that. You have no doubt more friends than either of us in that world.'_

'_Yeah,'_ Naruto had said, almost wistfully. He shook himself_. "Just keep in touch, okay?'_

'_I shall,_' said Gaara. _'Mekkatorque-san has promised many leaps of technology for our village, so keeping in close contact will hopefully not be a problem. He has, I am told "big plans".'_

'_He usually does,'_ Naruto had agreed, with a laugh.

Their conversation had not lasted much longer. It had degenerated from important issues into small talk after that, and when Naruto's friends and Gaara's siblings had returned, Naruto was in the middle of his story of Captain Blood and the freeing of the trolls of the Stranglethorn. Hinata, though she knew the story, immediately was enraptured, while Kiba complained loudly that he was making it up, while Temari and Sakura talked in a corner about things that men would not understand.

It had been a good time, and Gaara hoped that more would follow it.

Back in the present, Gaara smiled a smile that was a little wider than normal, and would since become his new standard. He then raised a hand out slightly in front of him, stiffly and mechanically, as it was a new action. Naruto blinked, looking down at it.

"Thank you," Gaara said, softly.

Naruto looked at the hand again, and then up into Gaara's face. The boy's eyes were now clear and bright, and the dark lines around them were beginning to fade. There was that slight smile on his lips, but in that slight smile Naruto could see the entire depth of Gaara's gratitude, all of the emotion he could not express. "Thank you" while to most would sound a little unappreciative, was the only way Gaara knew how to reply. It would change, over time, as a child who is first beginning to learn how to share and interact with other children and adults would be expected to. Naruto hoped that when he next saw Gaara, or sometime far in the future, he'd be able to hear what the boy truly wanted him to know. How truly thankful he was. Because when that time came, Naruto knew that Gaara would become as he had always been meant to.

"No problem," the blonde said, grinning.

"Your dream," said Gaara, "I know that you will realize it. Because it was you who helped me realize mine."

Naruto's smiled faded, just a fraction. Gaara's dead body appeared before his eyes, and Chiyo's words echoed back to him.

'_Become Hokage. And be the best one that there ever has been.'_

"Y-yeah," he finally said, fixing the fracture and nodding. "You'd better believe it."

Gaara smiled.

"I shall."

* * *

Deidara awoke to blackness.

"Where the hell…?" he muttered to himself. "What happened…?"

"You were injured," a soft voice appeared above him. It was delicate and feminine. He groaned. It was _her_, then.

"That badly…huh?"

"Yes. Sasori-san found you unconscious near the battle sight, buried beneath some rocks. It seems you remained too close to the blast from your clone. You should be thankful."

"I didn't think he'd care," Deidara retorted. But she was right. He had been a little too close, due to his wounds.

"_Okashira-sama _ordered him to do it."

"Hmph," he muttered. "Where is he?"

"He will return shortly."

Deidara tried to sit. But he realized he couldn't move. He attempted to struggle, to shift any part of his body beneath his neck. There was nothing. His eye widened.

"Hey…yeah, what gives?"

"Anesthesia," the voice said. "To quell the pain, I imagine. Sasori-san thought you might like it, and that is why I am here."

Deidara tried to lift his head, and look into the gloom in front of him. He saw nothing—not even his own body, in the darkness. He looked around, sighting only the blue eyes and the shadowy form of that woman. Then he heard footsteps. He turned his head, and a small light appeared in the distance, illuminating the face of his partner, Sasori. The true face, he realized, and not one of the ones he had always hidden behind, the most frequent of which being the ugly Hiruko.

"Sasori-danna! What the hell…yeah? Why am I all drugged up? Why hasn't this bitch healed me?"

"Because it isn't necessary to heal you, any longer, Deidara."

Deidara frowned. "What? I'm healed?"

"Not yet. I still have a few things to work out. Don't worry, though. You will still have some free will. I am not cruel. You're going to be one of my first experiments, you see. I have had a few corpses to practice on, but yours is the first that I hope will work."

Deidara's eyes widened. What was he talking about? Was he…?

"Hey! What the hell are you doing you bastard? _Okashira-sama_ won't let you…!"

"You've already been replaced, technically. Your body was so injured, Deidara, that having her," he gestured to the shadowy figure on Deidara's other side, "heal you would just be a waste of effort. Tobi will take your place."

"That little shit! What the hell? He's not…!"

"He is stronger than you. All you have is experience, Deidara, and some skill. However, as I said, you will not be dead, or even a _hitokugutsu_. You're going to be something much better, and you'll still even have conscious thought. You'll still be in Akatsuki, too. You'll even receive orders; the only difference being that you won't get a ring." Sasori lifted a large needle from his cloak, and looked across Deidara to the woman. "You may leave. He doesn't need monitoring any longer."

The woman vanished. Deidara roared in fury, cursing in every way he knew how.

"Why are you so angry, Deidara? You'll still be an artist, and allowed to continue and even propagate your petty and pointless idea of art." Sasori cocked his head to the side. "And you'll still be my partner. I promise, you'll get used to it. It even comes with perks. You'll never have to go to the bathroom again." The puppeteer chuckled, further enraging the former Akatsuki member. "But what I like the most is that you'll be a living contradiction of your own art. Welcome to eternity, Deidara. I know you'll begin to enjoy it."

"You can't do this! Goddammit!"

Sasori came forwards, and the light drifted over Deidara, making him halt his ranting and roaring at the sight of his body.

He nearly vomited.

He was then quiet, as Sasori began his work again.

* * *

"My king! My king! Thank the gods you've returned!"

Mekkatorque stared in abject confusion, which slowly turned into worry, as a gnome rushed towards him, as soon as he stepped off the portal platform. Behind him, the portal shimmered and rippled like the surface of a pool, only instead of reflecting Mekkatorque and the massive room in which he stood—a division of Upper Gnomeregan, just beneath the Skyport—it showed a sunny, sandy desert that stretched for miles into the horizon. He could still feel the dry wind blowing from behind him.

"What is wrong?" he asked immediately, pulling up his goggles and throwing off the long scarf that had covered his face from the flying sand. "What has happened?"

"Come with me!" the gnome immediately said. She was young and vibrant, and he recalled her face and name—Janeera—immediately recognizing her as one of the technicians who had helped him build the portal. She was gifted with schematics, from what he remembered. He quickly followed her, through a pair of large, thick doors and into the main Industrial district of the newly repaired city. It was still nothing compared to its former glory, but it shined new and brilliant, and the workers walked with life and youth in their steps, ready to be a part in recreating Gnomeregan in their image.

But not today—today they were solemn and silent, stopping their work as soon as he entered the room, following Janeera as swiftly as he could. The girl looked desperate and terrified, which made him even uneasier.

They crossed only a small portion of the massive room, going through another, smaller pair of doors into a much smaller room on the side. The four walls of the room were lined with a hundred or so drawers, from which papers and maps and schematics of all sorts spilled forth, in such a haphazard way that had he been any less messy himself, he would have found fault with it. He knew the room immediately however, at knew that it was merely a temporary storage room, until the proper Archives could be restored and repaired. Janeera immediately went, however, to a small computer panel that she had set up in one corner.

"Tell me," Mekkatorque finally said, irritated and worried. "What has happened?"

"They've been stolen, my king," Janeera whispered, softly.

"What have?"

"The blueprints."

Mekkatorque frowned. "For what?"

"The portal."

Mekkatorque's eyes grew wide. He took a step back, nearly falling. "W-what?"

Janeera was busy typing; after a few swift keystrokes she turned to him. "Forgive me for my rudeness, my king. But it was urgent. Three days ago, there was a security breach in the Skyport, but nothing was found. A few moments later, another one was set off down here, just outside this room. There were several guards stationed outside, and all along the colonnades, and patrols regularly crossed the main Industrial Hub. However, during this particular time, the patrol had just finished, and so there were only seven guards in the immediate area. When the alarm was raised, reinforcements were immediately sent down, only to find that all seven guards were dead, and the door to this room had been opened, and the plans had been taken from the vault I had placed them in."

Mekkatorque felt a surge of bile in his throat. His stomach churned with worry. Just when he had thought he was going to get some peace. He ran a hand through his hair, wiping the sweat from it and looking at the girl with suddenly intense eyes.

"Is that all that was taken?"

"Yes."

"Were the security cameras working?"

"Yes," she said, and pointed behind her. "I've set up this panel to show the tapes from that night. I…do not believe you will like what you are about to see." She looked at him, swallowing, her own face covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her bottom lip quivered from worry.

"Show me," he said, calmly, and a little coldly. He walked up to the panel, just as she hit the appropriate key, causing the screen to go black for a moment, and then show a clear image of the Industrial Hub. The camera was positioned on a pillar just opposite the door, giving a clear view of it. It showed two guards, standing on either side of the door, and nothing else.

"It happens quickly," Janeera said.

And she was right. For in the next moment, there was a sudden sound, and both guards leapt off-screen, shouting obscurely, and for a few moments there was a series of loud, brutal sounds; the most obvious and sickening being that of flesh being cut and blood spurting across the metal floor, and several dying screams.

Then everything went silent. Mekkatorque waited, his eyes wide, his breath quick, as the murderer walked onscreen. He could not see his face, for it was covered by a red veil; but the man, for it could be nothing else, was dressed in solid, blood red garments, the only difference being a white tabard, with a plume of crimson fire, almost like blood, splashed across the back. He entered, vanishing for but a moment, into the very room Mekkatorque now stood. His eyes flashed around the room, as if he expected the man to still be there. But the man returned a second later, clutching a rolled up parchment in one hand, and then vanished once more off-screen.

"T-that is all," Janeera said, softly.

Mekkatorque gave a single nod, and strode abruptly from the room. He ignored everything around him as he walked through the Industrial Hub, towards an elevator at the very end, which took him up to the highest floor, the High Tinker's Court. He walked through the room in which he had once destroyed his best friend, and took another elevator up to the very top of the room, the main control center. This entire time, he thought of nothing but how he was going to explain to King Magni and young Princess Kira of the situation.

That the Scarlet Crusade was now in possession of potentially the most dangerous weapon people such as they could have.

When he got inside the control room, he fiddled about on the main control panel, taking a small microphone and beginning to babble into it, quickly and softly, pressing a small button upon finishing, before slumping back in his chair.

This was bad. Worse than anything he had possibly imagined.

In this world, the Scarlet Crusade had become its own plague, ravaging across the humans of the Eastern Kingdoms and turning them into hate-fueled monsters. They had left a bloody, poisonous stain upon the world, and more importantly upon their very race.

Now, it seemed, they sought to bring the hate that drove them into a world pure of it.

* * *

Many miles away, Kira awoke with a knocking upon her door. She got swiftly out of bed, wrapping around her a small shawl to keep herself warm, and crossed the floor to her door, opening it a small crack.

"My lady?" a voice whispered. It was unfamiliar to her, but that was not surprising. There were many messengers whom she still wasn't familiar with despite her best efforts.

"What is it?" she asked.

"There is a message from the High Tinker of Gnomeregan, sent on his…device. I have been instructed to take you to receive it."

Kira nodded, softly, opening the rest of her door and meeting the man face on. He was short and thin, but had a kind face and no ill intentions, according to her empathy. She nodded. "Okay. Do you know what it's about?"

"No, my lady."

Kira sighed. "Very well. Shall we go?"

"Very good, my lady."

It was a brisk evening, and the floor of her new castle was cold to her bare feet. Almost immediately upon leaving her room, Kylia was by her side. The girl had a room right next to hers, and whether she just had superior ears or had some sixth sense where Kira was concerned, it didn't take long for her to get ready to accompany the young princess at the drop of a hat, whatever the situation might be. Kira gave her a brief smile, but it didn't hold. News from Mekkatorque was usually good, but the time of his contact led her to believe otherwise, in this situation.

The castle was still in construction. As they descended two floors by way of a single spiral staircase, and walked along another hall towards the back, it became more evident. Patches of wall remained unfinished, and some halls were cluttered with tools, stacks of wood and stone, and other supplies for building. They passed some rooms with no doors and bare of everything but four walls. Sometimes they didn't even have a roof. It still had a long way to go, but every day it became more beautiful and powerful. She could not wait to see it in its splendor.

They went down yet another staircase, after turning down several hallways. This took them below the earth, into the cellars. Stormwind Castle had no dungeons any longer. Criminals now rested in a large, underground section at the other end of the city, called the Stockades. They had been, aside from the infirmary, the first things rebuilt. Nobody knew how many criminals had escaped in the confusion of Onyxia's attack, but since it had already filled to its new, extended brim.

It shamed Kira that most of those contained had been convicted of hate crimes against the other races that now frequented the city.

Now, in addition to the wine and food cellars, there was a new wing, in which the new Deeprun Tram system had been built, which connected Stormwind to Ironforge and Gnomeregan. That wing also housed several of the new gnomish technologies that were being experimented with. And it was there that Kira found herself a moment later, staring at a panel with a blue screen and a few words. It said "1 message," in white, crisp letters.

Linkizzle and Rurizzle had come by a long time previous, and had explained in detail on how to use it. But now confronting it, she was a little unsure. She glanced at the buttons, then at the messenger, who blushed a little and hit key on the panel. The screen remained blue, but the words changed. It now read, "Repeating Message."

Mekkatorque's words came out, distant and muffled. It did nothing to lessen the effect.

"Terrible news. The plans for the portal have been stolen. It was the Scarlet Crusade. I have contacted King Magni. I will get word to Naruto and Benedictus as soon as I can. Keep yourself informed, contact the Argent Dawn. I am sorry. Gelbin Mekkatorque."

The message ended.

Kira stood still for a moment, staring at the panel that was invisible to Kylia and the unfortunate messenger to have to deliver the terrible news. She finally let out a breathless sigh, and turned. Her eyes had become emotionless, cold—regal. Kylia did not like the look, and never had. It made Kira seem a different, darker person. She liked the way her voice sounded even less—brittle, sharp, and emotionless.

"Inform Captain Schneider. I also want missives sent to Southshore and The Bulwark, telling them to keep an eye out for anything at all that deals with the Scarlet Crusade. Inform Lady Sylvanas at the Undercity, as well. She should be notified," she glanced at the messenger. "Immediately."

"Of course, my lady," he said immediately, going ramrod straight for a second with a salute, and then disappearing into the darkened corridor.

When he was gone, Kira seemed to relax, only too much. She slumped in a way that suggested she might fall any second, so Kylia immediately came to steady her.

"Sorry, Ky'. I'm fine. It's okay."

"Not it isn't," Kylia said, softly. "This is not good news, and you have every right to be worried, Kira." She had long since disposed of calling the girl mistress. "What do they hope to gain by this?"

"More followers, I imagine," Kira mumbled. "But how did they know? How did they find out?"

"A traitor?"

"Possibly," Kira said, not wanting to think of that. "But among the gnomes? Not likely, as the Scarlet Crusade despises them. And very few humans know of the portal; I could count them on one hand. " She sighed. "But this is horrible. If they manage to get it working, and do manage to get into Naruto's world…" she shivered. "They could turn it against us. People in that world don't know about things like the Scourge and the Forsaken; the Crusade could use that to breed fear and hate and turn the entire world to their side."

She gripped her shawl closer to her. The one that had ordered the death of her father was among the remaining ranks of the Scarlet Crusade. She had not forgotten the name. Lady Demetria. The Scarlet Oracle. The one that even Whitemane had feared.

"We can't let them do this. We can't let them gain any more power, Ky'. I want to call a meeting."

"Of whom?"

"Everyone. Everyone who is a part of this alliance. I want the leaders of all the races to meet for the first time. We need to discuss a plan of action, and we need to do more than just contemplate." She looked at Kylia with quivering eyes. "We need to begin this battle now, or it might be lost before it's even begun."

Kylia nodded.

They left the room. The air seemed to have gotten even colder as the walked up, back to their rooms. Kira walked each step with the same thought in her mind.

'_Come back soon. Come back, Naruto.'_

* * *

Done. Hope this chapter was good, it positively reeked of emotion didn't it?

I made Gaara survive. Yes, I know it might have been obvious. But it will have far-reaching consequences, at least for Naruto. Probably for Gaara, too.

Deidara getting the sack. I thought it was a rather creepy scene, myself, but what do you guys think? I left the description of his body to your imaginations. I hope they went wild:)

Yes. Back to Azeroth soon, guys. No more copying the storyline for me. It's all original. Hope I get back the fans I lost in those last few chapters. Hope to gain more fans as well.

Keep on truckin'. I'll see you guys in a week.

Review please!

General Grievous


	9. In Which Much is Discussed

**Disclaimer: i dnt own narto or wow…omg…srsly…**

* * *

The return trip to Konoha took the full three days this time, for Kakashi refused to travel through the night. His body, apparently, was still weak due to his use of the manipulated _Mangekyou Sharingan_. This provided for much of the amusement of the journey, something that was well needed after such emotionally trying days. At numerous points, Kakashi would humbly ask Kurenai if he could carry him, to which the woman would respond in a calm and simple manner.

"No."

Kakashi would never ask further than that. Whether it was because of the ire of Kurenai or one of his students, it was unclear. So the majority of the time, he would plod along beside a pair of Naruto clones, who would help him over especially trying obstacles.

The reason for his excessive weakness was made known to everyone after the first day, just as they had crossed the desert. They were crowded around a small campfire, built by Kiba and Naruto, and Kurenai asked the question.

"Why are you suddenly so weak?"

Kakashi set down a tin that just a moment before had been filled with food. Nobody had seen him eat, yet again. "Ahh. It's a bit of a story, much of one that I'm not at the liberty to tell you all, so I'll shorten it a bit. A year or so ago I began experimenting in different ways with the _Sharingan_. After several months, I was able to increase its power to a level that I had previously thought impossible. It focuses _chakra_—my _chakra_—to such a degree that it creates an small pocket in the air, infinitely small, at a varying distance in front of me—the max is, I think, around ten meters. This point is essentially a vacuum—a small hole that is capable of sucking in a massive amount of matter. I do not know how much matter can be compressed into this hole, but it is quite a lot. It creates what I like to call a black hole."

"A good name," Sakura said, rolling her eyes.

Kakashi chuckled. "It is, isn't it? This vacuum is so powerful that even things like light can't escape it. Unfortunately I can't keep it open for long, as the amount of _chakra_ needed to keep it open is immense, completely beyond my capabilities for more than a few seconds. It also injures my eyes, and hinders my ability to see for a while. On top of that, it's hard to aim. But when I can use it properly, it's an extremely deadly technique, or so I like to think."

"How can someone without Uchiha blood," asked Sakura, frowning, "manipulate the _Sharingan_ like that?"

"Who knows? Perhaps blood doesn't activate this ability. I can't say for sure yet, though I have several theories, none of which I will divulge to you."

Naruto glowered. "You're a great storyteller, Kakashi-sensei," he muttered.

"Thanks!" Kakashi said, with a hidden smile, apparently choosing to ignore the sarcasm.

When they reached Konoha, Kurenai's team immediately parted from them. Kakashi said that he would deliver the mission report to Tsunade by himself, so that they could get some well-deserved rest. And they did just that, after a not-so-healthy dinner of ramen at Ichiraku's.

The next few days passed as such; calm and quiet, in which Naruto saw nothing of Kakashi or Yamato, and heard nothing from Tsunade or Benedictus, and thus found it impossible to get much training done. He met with Sakura frequently, worried when he saw the bandage that still bound Sakura's arm up.

"It's nothing," she said, waving her arm, smiling. "Tsunade-shishou already looked at it. It'll be fine."

But the girl knew nothing about the Hokage's dealings with Benedictus. He also spent a lot of time with his friends, none of which had missions at that point. Lee danced with joy upon seeing Naruto, commenting how powerful and filled with the spirit of youth he seemed. Neji half-smiled and half-glared in his usual way, saying nothing, and Tenten greeted Naruto cheerfully, determined to be as good a friend as her teammates were.

The young Hyuuga invited Naruto and the rest of his friends to the Hyuuga estate. They sat in a small circle in one of the many dining rooms it held, usually reserved for members of the Branch House. It was decidedly traditional—with _tatami_ mat floors, sliding screen doors, and many scrolls depicting feudal scenes decorating the walls. It was small, but cozy, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Both Hinata and Neji were dressed finer than normal, in pretty, yet simple, white kimonos; but that was customary of their family.

"How long are you staying?" Neji asked, sipping his tea.

"Huh?" Naruto asked, frowning strangely at the boy.

"You seem to hold considerable connections to this world," Neji said. "When do you plan to return?"

Naruto glanced at Sakura, a frown on his face. "I dunno. I was gonna go back when Benedictus did, and I think that's gonna be whenever Tsunade-baba decides what to do. I haven't seen any of them for a while."

"You're only going to stay this little while?" Chouji asked.

Naruto scratched his head, a little embarrassed. "I'm not gonna be gone long, I don't think. But if Tsunade-baba gets this alliance worked out, I may be gone for longer. I kinda made a promise to help Kira-chan…"

"I see," said Neji, nodding. "And if no alliance occurs?"

"That won't happen," Naruto said, confidently. "I'm sure of it."

"You're ignoring the extreme ramifications this alliance will have on our way of life," Shikamaru said, blowing on his tea and glancing over at Naruto, from where he sat four places to the blonde's left. "It's not so easy to decide, even for Tsunade-sama."

"I'm not saying that," Naruto said. "But she'll decide to do it, in the end." Naruto shrunk a little in his seat, frowning. "How many shinobi does Konoha have?"

"A little over a thousand active members, including _genin, chuunin _and _jounin_," Sakura recited, as if a book containing the exact data lay open before her. "Why?"

"Well, that's a lot, right? And Konoha is still strong, even after Orochimaru attacked us. Yet both he and Akatsuki still pose a threat, don't they?"

"That's hardly because of their size," Shikamaru said. "Their true strength lies in their ability to hide from us, and the extreme power of what few they do have. We have almost no way of preparing for an attack against them, which means there is more of a chance that when they do attack, a lot more people will die." He stared at Naruto. "But I don't see what you're trying to say."

"Well, I'm just saying, that even though we are strong, we aren't strong enough yet to defeat them. If we were, we'd be able to find them and do it, right? They know our tricks as well as we do, probably. I mean, they are all shinobi, right? Tsunade-baba knows that if we allied with Kira-chan and the others, there'd be so much more for us to use against them that we'd be able to crush them despite their strength. Even though they seem to have some idea about Kira-chan's world, they probably won't know as much as the actual inhabitants. They won't know every trick or ability that they have, 'cause there are so many to choose from. Old man Benedictus knows this, and so Tsunade-baba knows this now as well." He gave a satisfied nod. "That's why she'll accept."

The entire retinue was silent for a moment, most of them staring at Naruto, impressed. Shikamaru coughed, attributing the blonde's newfound ability to logically argue to his superior knowledge of the subject.

"But how do you suppose they discovered this place?" Shino asked. "It would seem that it is not the most easily accessed place."

"It isn't," Naruto muttered. "But maybe the go the same way I went, the first time. Maybe they have more of those special stones. Come to think of it, I dunno even what the stone was, other than it belonged to Kira-chan's mother."

"It is difficult to say," said Shikamaru. "But given that they do have access, it means they have more of an advantage than we do. They have several powers of both worlds, and perhaps they might even have members from this one and the next; if that is so, then it will take knowledge of both sides in order to defeat them. So I suppose you're right," he conceded at last, with a sigh. "But even with this alliance, it will hardly put us on a level playing field. They will still have the advantage. They have a smaller group, and thus it is easier for them to move around without being seen. They also have a number of abilities that are unknown to us, as evidenced by your fight against their 'minions' of the Sand."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. But I think we'll still come out on top, in the end. They're just one group—they don't seem like the type to ally with anybody, right?"

"They seem too audacious and confident for that," Sakura said frostily. "They hardly act like shinobi, unless they are posed with an adequate threat. They fight like samurai or warriors, and just attack in the open, despite the extreme advantage they might have."

"They'll quit that now though," said Kiba. "After what Naruto did to that clay bomber guy, and how much of a fight Sakura put up against that puppeteer."

"And they'll most certainly use whatever they need to in order to achieve their goal," said Shikamaru. "I don't know the specifics, but they seem to be after things like Shukaku—the demon within Gaara."

"Yeah," Naruto muttered. "They're after all the demons, it looks like. Even mine."

"Yours?"

-----------------

Naruto froze. He glanced around, realizing what he had just said.

"Naruto," said Neji, frowning, "did you just say…?"

"Yes."

Heads swiveled to Sakura, who had spoken the word. The girl was looking firmly at Naruto.

"Naruto is the container of the Kyuubi no Youko. That's why he had to use extra caution during that battle, because they were after him as well." She looked around. "Is that at all surprising to anybody?"

There was a moment of silence.

Finally, Kiba gave a shrug. "Nah, can't say I am. It'd explain how he got up after all my Gatsuuga's during the _Chuunin Exam._"

"And how he overcame my _hakke_ techniques," said Neji, nodding.

"And how he healed so quickly despite all the damage he took," said Chouji.

"And why none of our teachers liked him during the Academy," said Ino.

"And why he can use _Kage Bunshin_ s-so well," Hinata said.

"And how he was able to defeat Neji-kun," said Tenten.

"And Gaara-san," added Lee, nodding.

"Does anybody feel different about it?" Sakura then asked, frowning hard at everyone.

Everyone looked at each other for a second, then back at Naruto.

"Nope!"

Sakura looked back at Naruto, and gave him a satisfied nod. "See? You had no reason to worry."

But Naruto had already moved past that. "Hey! I beat Neji by myself! And Gaara, too! I just used the fox to help me! 'Sides, I can't use it well anymore, anyways! I could still cream all of you!"

"That a challenge, Naruto?" Kiba asked, flexing an arm.

"Yeah, bastard!"

"Then you will fight us. All of us, at once, if you are so confident in your skills." Neji smiled in a evidently mocking way, while the others grinned at Naruto in varying degrees. Their mock fight lasted for a few moments, in which the males pinned Naruto the ground in the middle of the circle, while Ino and Tenten moved in and tickled him mercilessly until he yielded. Sakura and Hinata watched, and noted the warmth and gladness in Naruto's smile, as they all laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

------------

When it was all over, Ino said suddenly, in a sly voice:

"You talk a lot about this 'Kira-chan' girl. She must be pretty special, hmm?"

"Eh? I guess. She's a princess, you know."

"So she is," said Ino. "I mean, you've talked a bit about her in your messages, but never gone into much detail." She nudged closer to the boy, leaning across Chouji, who sat to Naruto's immediate left. "Do you like her?"

Naruto blinked. "She's my friend."

"That's not what I asked."

Naruto blinked again, and followed this with a blush. "Oh…"

"You just have to turn everything into gossip, don't you, Ino?" Sakura muttered.

"Ohhhh? Is that a little smattering of jealousy that I hear in your voice, Forehead-girl?"

Sakura reddened. "Shut up. That's not it at all."

While Ino and Sakura continued their usual trading of insults, Lee immediately bellowed out what he had been holding inside for quite a while.

"Naruto-kun! You must take me with you on your next journey!"

Naruto turned to Lee. "You wanna come? That'd probably be fine, but you'd have to ask Tsunade-baba first, probably." The others began expressing loudly and cheerily at the prospect of going. Azeroth, the world Naruto had gotten so strong in, fascinated them all. Shikamaru, being the realist he was, pronounced that Tsunade probably wouldn't allow all of them to go at once, given the number of shinobi that would cost her, for little reason at all other than to just sightsee. While this was true, Naruto promised to ask Tsunade as soon as he could.

"You're not leaving me behind this time, Naruto," Sakura said, at the end of things.

Naruto returned the smile twice over. "You guys are gonna love this place!"

His eyes grew distant.

"Just as much as me."

* * *

A day later Tsunade finally contacted them and were ordered immediately to come to her office. Sakura and Naruto met at the bridge where they had always met before, and hurried to the Hokage's office. They arrived a little after ten, taking the elevator to the top, and finally hurrying down the hall into Tsunade's spacious and bright office, where she, Kakashi and Benedictus all stood. Surprisingly, Yamato was there as well, standing in a corner by himself, looking up when they came in.

Tsunade greeted the boy of them with a nod, though when her eyes fell on Sakura, they seemed to harden and become cold; Naruto only saw it for a moment, and he saw Sakura flinch slightly as well. But it passed in a second, and Tsunade had taken her seat again, her eyes drifting back to Naruto.

"Good," Tsunade said, with a nod. "You're here. We can start now." Her eyes went to Benedictus. "Why don't you break the news, old man?"

"I'd be delighted," Benedictus said, whispering something unheard by the rest under his breath afterwards, which was undoubtedly an insult. He turned to Naruto, smiling widely. "We have reached an agreement—an unorthodox one, to be sure, but one that will still benefit both parties considerably. I recall you told me a little of how the concept of a shinobi village works, yes?"

Naruto nodded.

"Well, Lady Tsunade has told me the rest of it, and both of us were struck with an idea; one that would hopefully work in the same way as an alliance, but get past the Council of Konoha, who would most certainly oppose such an abrupt alliance with someone from another world. It is simple. We will give you a mission."

Naruto frowned. "Whaddya mean?"

But Sakura immediately caught on. Her eyes grew wide. "You plan to do something that big?"

"It's the only way," said Tsunade, resting her chin on the back of her palms and staring at her student. "The Council wouldn't agree to it otherwise."

"What are you guys talking about?" Naruto asked, looking at Sakura and then at Tsunade. "What kind of mission?"

"A mission, dear boy," said Benedictus, before either female could, "that does not just extend to you or your team, or even your closest friends—but a mission that extends to the entire village. A mission that calls for arms against our enemies."

"A mission that pays extremely well, and is obligatory to most acting shinobi," Tsunade said, her face growing hard. "I will hold a meeting with the entirety of the village, and explain this to them. It will be an S-Class mission, and pay as such to all those who take part. It will be optional only to those with _genin_ teams; those who don't believe their teams are ready to fight in such a war can call off at any time. But as of now, we are bound to the city and people of Stormwind—they are now our clients, and will be until this war is over.

"Of course, seeing as you our still our ally, we will have a bit more insurance than one normally would in a deal such as this," said Benedictus. "I do not think that any of the other kingdoms would stand for a true mercenary army, whose loyalty lasts only as long as our coin. Though we still must pay, it is in retrospect a much safer deal, for a much better price. I do not believe we will find many better warriors than the one's in this village." He talked with such knowledge of Konoha that he might as well have lived their all his life. Naruto now had an idea of what he had done during the days he had not seen the old man.

"But is this alright? To hire all of the shinobi in the village would cost a lot. Would your kingdom be able to handle it, in the long run?" Sakura asked.

"I should think so," Benedictus said, lightly. "Stormwind is among the richest kingdoms in the world. While much of our coin has been spent in its repair, there is no doubt that several of our allies will come to our aid—if not Thrall's Horde, then the dwarves and gnomes of our region would gladly lend aid." He paused, and a small, glad smile appeared. "It seems that all of us are learning once again to trust each other. I do not believe we have ever been closer than now. But I honestly think that with Konoha's addition to the war, it will make all the difference in the world."

"What about the Sand?" Naruto asked. "Gaara wanted to help as well."

"He's already sent word about that," Tsunade said, holding up a piece of paper, one of the many that lay splattered across her desk. "But he still has to talk about it with his Council. He promises to tell me as soon as anything occurs."

Naruto nodded firmly. Hope began to swell greater than ever in his heart—they had done it. It hadn't been what he had expected, but that didn't matter any longer. Kira-chan would be so happy, and they would be one step closer to ending the terror of the Scourge. He did not bother to hide this explosion of sudden joy, in the form of the biggest smile to ever grace the Hokage's office and sudden cry of exultation. The resulting shockwave set off several others as well—Benedictus beamed like a kind grandfather; Kakashi behind his mask; Sakura widely; and even Yamato needed to smother a small one.

Tsunade hid her own expertly, which refusing to show any sort of weakness to Benedictus; though they seemed to be on good terms with each other, both knew otherwise. She had since learned to control whatever human outbursts she might have had in his presence.

"And this brings us," Benedictus finally said, "to the reason you two have been called here. I would like your team, Naruto, to accompany me back to Stormwind, so that we may deliver the news to Kira in person. I think she will need some good news, as I doubt she has gotten much in the time we have been gone."

Naruto suddenly appeared even more excited—perhaps more than he meant to. Sakura frowned slightly in his direction, but he didn't notice. She could not, however, fully suppress her own thrill.

"But Sakura will not be joining you."

Sakura froze, mouth agape, her feelings shattering like weak glass.

Naruto stared in horror as well, but that quickly became anger. "Hey! What the hell do you mean by that, baa-chan!"

Tsunade stared with hardened eyes at Sakura, who shrank into her seat. "Her arm."

Naruto swiveled back to Sakura. He saw that Kakashi was looking at the girl as well, a flicker of worry in his calm eye.

"What about her arm?" Naruto demanded. "What's wrong with it?"

"It's too damaged," Tsunade said. "Whatever pathogen affected it was so devastating that a number of the nerve cells were completely destroyed in that area. Her arm is essentially dead weight at this point, and if it is left like that longer, it will begin to decay and become infectious."

Naruto slammed his hand onto the table, his face white—a mixture of fear and anger. He snarled, "Can't you fix it? Can't she fix it? What the hell is going on?" He turned again to Sakura, his face softening slightly. "Didn't you say it was fine?"

Sakura was silent for a moment. She could not meet Naruto's eyes.

"I lied," she finally said, her voice soft. "I had no reason to worry you. Besides, it wasn't definite until yesterday. Tsunade-shishou did all she could to heal it, but the disease had damaged the area so much that not even my technique would work on it. So now…" She swallowed. "…Now, in order to prevent it from becoming gangrenous, it must be removed."

She finally mustered the courage to glance piteously at the blonde.

"I'm sorry, Naruto." She then turned her eyes away again. "I guess I can't go."

Naruto was at a loss for words. He glanced back and forth between Sakura's slumped form and Tsunade, who would not meet his eyes either. He looked back and forth for a few more seconds, his eyes slowly becoming darker and his posture becoming slumped. He may not have been the best at the Academy, but he knew exactly what it meant to have an arm cut off.

It meant that she'd no longer be a shinobi.

Because a shinobi with only one arm could not do half the _jutsu_ that was required of a normal shinobi, and even if they managed to overcome that, most would look upon them with derision and disgust, or worse, with pity. They would become crippled—an outcast. A shinobi with one arm was not truly a shinobi at all.

But then something struck him.

"Wait!" Naruto's eyes grew suddenly wide, and the melancholy mood was lifted and replaced with confusion. "What about troll's blood potion!"

"What?" asked Tsunade.

"I got a couple bottles of it from Vol'jin-nii…it can regenerate limbs!" Naruto immediately began to dig around in his jacket and pouches, rummaging through everything he had in them, but to no avail. The others remained in slight shock, wondering exactly what the blonde was doing.

Benedictus explained.

"Nerve damage isn't so permanent in our world as it is in yours, Lady Tsunade. Though there are no techniques to demonstrate this, there are medicines that can regenerate lost tissue at any level. The trolls, for example, have a unique ability to re-grow limbs. Their blood contains a multitude of this special substance, and when infused with several other herbs, can create a potion that can regenerate any matter of tissue, including nerves. However, to both spare her the trauma of it being removed, and the pain of it being re-grown; as unfortunately the potion nullifies any anesthetics, as far as we know, and the pain of re-growth is as immense as losing it; but it's hardly something to cry over."

"Yeah!" Naruto said. "See, it's not that bad!"

Sakura stared for a moment forwards, as if in shock. A second later, she turned, and clocked Naruto in the head with a curled fist.

"Why the hell didn't you say that before!" she roared. Naruto fell forwards with such force that he smacked his head on the table with enough force to crack it, and stun the boy. Naruto lay like this for a few moments, while everyone in the room sighed.

'_Should've expected as much,' _thought Kakashi, rolling his eye. He glanced at Sakura. Despite her apparent annoyance, he could see that her eyes were smiling.

"Where is it?" asked Tsunade. "Did you bring it back?"

"I thought I did…" Naruto said, as he gradually recovered. "It may be at my apartment, though I could have forgotten it back in Stormwind." He cocked his bleeding head to the side. "I don't remember packing it…"

"It's probably for the best," said Benedictus. "I wouldn't use the potion in its pure form in any case. Keep in mind the pathogen that destroyed her arm was of Hakkar the Soulflayer, a blood-god of the trolls. It is highly likely that it has evolved in such a way that it requires a bit more to fully overcome the effects. But worry not. We shall be able to overcome it, I'm sure of it."

"Fine, good then," Tsunade said. She sighed in relief, but veiled it in a cough, and gave an apologetic look to Sakura. The girl smiled back, and all was forgiven. Sakura glanced over to Naruto and saw him giving her the same apologetic look at several times the intensity. She just rolled her eyes.

But all was forgiven anyways.

"But that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be changes to your team." She glanced at Kakashi.

"I won't be coming," said Kakashi, giving a little wave. "I've got other things to do, unfortunately, per Tsunade-sama's orders. Yamato-kun will be filling in for me."

"Don't say '-kun', Kakashi-senpai. Our age isn't that different," Yamato said, stepping forwards.

"Yamato-san is…?" Naruto muttered, frowning. "Is he going to continue my training?"

"That's partly why," said Kakashi. "You'll also be getting a new team member. He'll join you tomorrow, when you leave."

"A new team member? Who is it?" asked Sakura.

"Nobody you know," muttered Tsunade, rather displeased. "Yamato will introduce you to him." She glanced around. "Now, that should be everything. Benedictus-san, you're going to be briefing Sakura and myself in every possible way about this medicine that will cure her. I want to know it outside and in. The rest of you can leave. Yamato, Naruto: be ready for tomorrow. You'll meet at the gate at dawn."

"What about the others?" Naruto suddenly asked.

"What others?" Tsunade said, frowning.

"Everyone wanted to come," said Sakura. "To see the other world."

"No," said Tsunade. "You'll be the only ones going, at this point. I can't risk anybody else leaving." She glanced around. "It isn't a vacation, you two. This is important business."

"You're preaching to the choir, baa-san," Naruto said, frowning. He sighed. "But I guess you're right."

"Good," said Tsunade. "Now go, there's still a lot to be done."

Naruto nodded. He exchanged a glance with Sakura, giving her quick nod, but smiling to show his relief for her situation. She smiled back in the same fashion, for she was just as happy as he; she would never be a burden to him again.

* * *

The next day came swiftly. But Naruto was able to get a remarkable amount done. He contacted all of his friends, telling them the news, discovering that they were already aware of this, as it was common sense, and then saying a quick goodbye to all of them. He didn't think a quick goodbye would suffice for long, but he promised them he'd come back as soon as possible. They didn't contest, for they knew this as well.

After that, Naruto, followed closely by Tsuwabuki, met with Kakashi for a final time. They met at the bridge where they had always met in the past, and they had walked short distance away, into the forest, into a large training plot that looked long unused. It was completely clear save for a pair of stumps in the middle, one of them large enough to serve as a makeshift punching bag, the other small enough to sit on. Kakashi walked over to the bigger stump and leaned against it. Naruto stood by the small stump, waiting, and Tsuwabuki lay down beside him.

"I'm going to give you that training technique I said I would, now. Make a clone. Good." Kakashi placed his hands together, and created a clone as well, which stood by Naruto's in the same fashion that Kakashi now stood.

"Okay. My clone is going to whisper something to your clone. Cover your ears; make sure you don't hear a thing, okay?"

Naruto nodded, clapping his hands over his ears, while Kakashi's clone leaned in and whispered something into the clone's ear. A moment later, the Kakashi clone leaned back, and vanished in a puff of smoke. The Naruto clone stood still, a rather strange look on his face.

"What now?" Naruto asked, curious to know what his clone now knew.

"Dispel your clone."

Naruto did so with a frown; but as second later, his eyes went wide. Then, the same weird look crossed his face, and he looked dubiously at Kakashi.

"You're creepy, Kakashi-sensei," he said.

'**_I don't understand what he said,' _**Tsuwabuki exclaimed. '**_What does that second word mean?'_**

"I'd rather not say," Naruto said, glancing at the fox.

"But you know the basic idea of the technique now, don't you?" Kakashi said, smiling, oblivious.

"Yeah," Naruto said, scratching his head. "That's weird, I never noticed it before…clones give you the information they know when they disappear."

"It was created as a spying technique. You're the only one who can probably use it in the way that you often do—as a staple attack, using many clones to overwhelm your opponents. And because of that, you're the only one who can use this little trick to its desired effect." Kakashi said. "The point is that due to the sheer number of clones you can summon, you can absorb an enormous amount of knowledge and experience in a very short time. By using as many clones as possible, you'll be able to quickly learn techniques and abilities that would normally take weeks, months, even years; or perhaps never. It's a little regrettable that we don't have enough time to go over it together, but I have things to do, and so do you." He scratched the back of his head. "I'm not going to teach you anything more; I'll leave that to Yamato. He knows his stuff, and from what I can see, you've already got a base handle on it."

"What are you talking about?" the blonde asked.

"Do you know what elemental _chakra_ is?"

Naruto paused, frowning. "I think so…Ero-sennin mentioned something about it when he was training me. So did Thrall. I didn't fully understand it, but I know it's what allows me to use fire _jutsu_, water _jutsu_, earth _jutsu_ and lightning _jutsu_…"

Kakashi blinked at the boy. '_He can't really use all of those…can he?' _He repeated the question aloud.

"I'm not very good with lightning or earth or water," Naruto said, sighing. "But I'm pretty good with fire, and I can do some ice as well."

"Ice?" Kakashi said, his eyes widening. "That shouldn't be possible."

"Why not?"

"Because to use ice, you need to have a certain ability that you don't have, Naruto. You remember Haku?" At the boy's confused nod, he continued. "Haku had a _kekkai genkai_, right? Only through a _kekkai genkai _can one use elements like ice or wood; by combining two of the five central elements—wind, water, fire, earth and lightning."

Naruto blinked. "But…I still do have one ice _jutsu_. Does that mean I have a _kekkai genkai?_"

"No," Kakashi said, now frowning intensely; his eye gripped Naruto like a vice, preventing him from moving even and inch. It was clear that Kakashi had not expected anything like this, and it confused him that such a knowledgeable person—usually the font of information that Naruto was accustomed to—was at a loss. The silver-haired man was silent for a few more moments, just staring at Naruto.

"Show me the seals you use to do the _jutsu_," Kakashi finally said.

Naruto nodded, showing them in order as slowly and expertly as he could manage. The _jutsu_ was not his favorite, and one that he still found difficult in using effectively. It was cool and flashy, exactly to his style, but it was still hard to manage, especially in larger battles.

"Ah," Kakashi said, his eyes widening. "I expected as much. What seals are those called?"

"Moon," Naruto said, making the first, his hands forming a large circle in the middle. "Then Soul, Wisdom, Arrow, and Frost." He then looked up at Kakashi. "I know they're not normal, but these are some of the one's they use in Azeroth. They've got a lot more than we do, from what I saw."

Kakashi stroked his covered chin, and contemplated for a few more seconds. He then reached into a pouch on his vest, and pulled out a small piece of paper, three inches long and four wide. He held it out to the blonde, who took it, again looking perplexed.

"Put a bit of _chakra_ into that, Naruto. I just want to be sure of something."

Naruto nodded, sending a sliver of _chakra_ into the small paper. It soaked it up readily, at then remarkably, split in two as if it had always been.

"I thought as much," Kakashi said, visibly glowing with interest. "That's incredible. It seems we do have a lot to learn about this world. I think I've found the explanation."

"What is it?"

"Those seals are far different from any seals we have; we have a total of twelve hand-seals, not including half seals. Others have been discovered, but they are completely dependant upon the village you come from—we have four more hand-seals, which form solely Leaf techniques. But you've just proved that there are so much more to yet be discovered, and still so many abilities that we've yet to tap into." He nodded to himself. "Okay, first off, that piece of paper was specially designed to react to elemental _chakra_. Everyone has a basic elemental affinity, one that above all others you learn, that will be the strongest. Yours, due to the splitting action, is wind. If it had burnt, it would have been fire; crumpled, lightning; gotten wet, water; and torn, earth."

Naruto blinked. "I'm best at wind…?"

"Yes—do you know any wind _jutsu_?"

Naruto thought a moment. "Hmm…I guess _air-grasping_ would be that, and maybe _Kazaashi_, as well. Tsuwabuki can do some with me, too, I think—her _Yajuu Dogou_ is wind, I think. But I don't remember Thrall explaining anything about wind elemental _chakra_ when he described how to do those. I just did it how I thought it would work, and from watching him."

'**_I recall something mentioned, about elemental chakra when we trained with Rexxar. I believe that I must share wind, as well.'_**

Naruto informed Kakashi of Tsuwabuki's words, and Kakashi nodded.

"It makes sense. Your bond must be strong, from what I can see. I saw the _air-grasping_ during the last fight. It's impressive, and definitely uses a very rudimentary wind-based _chakra_. But it doesn't commit the true function of the wind _chakra_, but that I'll explain later. The ice _jutsu_, however, is what I really wanted to explain. From what I can see, your use of the special seals, combined with your affinity for wind—as well as your prior knowledge and use of water _jutsu_, allows you to combine wind and water _chakra_ to create ice. You've duplicated a _kekkai genkai_ in its most basic form." He smiled, shaking his head in amazement. "It's amazing. That world is really so much more developed than ours; they must have been practicing _jutsu_ for centuries, perhaps even longer, in order to have discovered how to do so much."

It was rare to see Kakashi so passionate or excited by something other than porn, Naruto thought.

"But what's the primary function of wind?" Naruto asked. "Don't I need to train in that?"

"The basic principle of wind is _cutting_. Those who can use wind _jutsu_ specialize in hand-to-hand combat and cutting their opponents up. They are the strongest weapon users as well. But it seems that you have an affinity for fire as well. Fire is destruction, burning, and is the most combat-oriented of the elements. It is rarely, if at all, used for defense-based _jutsu_. I'm rather skilled in fire, though my primary is and always will be lightning. You're going to have to train on your own for wind; it's not as common as the rest, for some reason."

"What about Yamato-san?"

"He's earth and water, but his ability allows him to combine them to form wood—something that only the Shodai was able to do before now."

Naruto nodded slowly, frowning. "So that's it? You're just gonna tell me I have it, and not tell me how to use it?"

"You have to figure that out for yourself. I've given you all you need to learn; use the _Kage Bunshin_ training technique as much as you can in the time before you leave, but do it is relative obscurity." The man's last words were softer and sharper than the rest of them; his eyes went deadly serious.

"Why?" Naruto asked, suddenly slightly worried.

"Don't ask at this point, I'm not allowed to tell. Just promise me this; Yamato will no doubt be there to help you anyways, and knows to keep it a secret." Then, his seriousness faded, and he smiled. "I'll miss you. I'd like to go, but Hokage-sama's orders come first. I'll most likely see you when you get back, or perhaps I may join you; who knows?"

Naruto nodded, smiling back. "Okay."

They parted ways, and the rest of the day Naruto spent testing out the new training technique. He then went to Ichiraku's, said goodbye to his two favorite ramen chefs, and went back home.

Finally, after a restful sleep and a morning of hurried packing, Naruto met with Sakura on the bridge, and the two of them walked to the massive gates of Konoha, which less than a week before they had just passed through on another mission. Benedictus was already there, dressed in his familiar golden, flowing robes, smiling benignly. He seemed excited.

"Ah," he said when they came up. "Hello!"

"You're excited," Naruto observed.

"Indeed. I am positively thrilled to return, especially since I will be able to tell Kira this good news. Are you not excited, my boy?"

"Of course!"

"Good," the old man said. Then he frowned, and looked about. "Where is that fox of yours?"

"She's not coming," Naruto said, frowning in annoyance. "She just told me this morning, too."

Sakura looked at him. "What'd you do to her?"

"Nothing! She just said she wanted to stay here 'cause she found it more peaceful than Stormwind, and she could be my eyes and ears here." The blonde nodded. "I thought it sounded reasonable."

"It will certainly test the limits of your bond," said Benedictus. "We'll have to see if it extends that long."

"I think it will," Naruto said. "It worked from across two continents in Azeroth. I'm not worried about her, either. She says she'll hang around and learn a thing or two from Kiba and his dogs, and will probably stay with Baa-chan or something. Baa-chan knows that I can communicate with her, and will say stuff to her to tell me."

He was a little bit worried, however. If it didn't work, then he'd have no contact with Tsuwabuki for a while. The fox had been around him for so long that it would be weird not being able to contact her with but a thought.

"Well, it certainly is helpful, and better than those strange toads you have always used," Benedictus said. Before Naruto could comment, he heard a very strange noise.

It sounded like a mass quantity of blood hitting the stone ground with surprising force, and then another series of liquid-sounding noises rapidly growing louder, approaching from behind. Naruto spun, pushing Sakura back, as a massive black panther slammed into him.

The panther was nothing like anything he had seen—it didn't appear real. Its body was an outline of hazy, blurred black, its eyes twin splatters of black surrounded by wide orbs, its teeth jagged and blotchy, and its body reminded him of a hastily painted picture. It smelled exactly as a wild animal should, but looked nothing like one.

Naruto took the brunt of the force, steeling his body with _Kongou_. He cried out, thrusting the beast to the side, and drawing his sword in a swift and powerful cut, removing the beast's right foreleg. It crippled into a heap, suddenly becoming nothing more than a black, oozing puddle.

He whipped his head up, only to have two more strange, inky creatures—both large, terrifying birds, slam into him, bowling him onto the ground. Their claws gripped him tightly, but did not pierce the dragonhide jacket he wore. He snarled in rage, ripping free and bounding to his feet, his blade swiping at the birds, which took into the air before they were struck. They circled above, and attacked again. Naruto cut one in half, his blade slicing through it cleanly and effortlessly, turning it into a black puddle, which nearly fell atop the boy. The other clawed at his face, but he ducked low and kicked it in the bottom, dispelling it.

He whirled. Benedictus and Sakura stood still—Sakura was breathing heavily, and Benedictus appeared unruffled; black pools lay at their feet.

Naruto turned again, just in time to see a murder of black birds erupt from behind a sloping roof at the side of the main street into the village. With swift, powerful bounds, Naruto charged towards the roof, bent down, and flung himself atop. The birds descended on him in a moment, but Naruto ignored them; none of the blows pierced his flesh, the dragonhide jacket absorbing all of it. He descended on top of a boy—perhaps his age or a little older, whose eyes were clear and black, staring up at him with a poor representation of surprise. The boy twisted, kicking upwards, but Naruto smashed the leg out of his way and caught the boy by the throat. He touched the ground a bare moment before he was off again, still clutching the youth by the neck in a vice. He landed on the opposite side of the roof, smashing the boy into the tiles hard enough to shatter the ones beneath him.

"Who are you?" Naruto grated out between breaths.

The boy did not answer. Instead he smiled. It was the fakest, most plaster cast smile Naruto had witnessed in all his life. There was no hint of emotion behind it, within it, or about it. It appeared so foreign that it was a blemish on his perfectly smooth, feminine face.

Naruto was thoroughly disgusted by it.

Then he spoke, in a soft, almost feminized lilt.

"My. You must have a big dick."

Naruto could only respond:

"Huge."

* * *

Three days passed, and they were already well into the forest, nearing the ends where the desert began to meet it. They traveled swiftly enough, considering they had Benedictus, who moved as swiftly as a dammed river. It would take them by Benedictus' estimation another day and a half to reach the area where the portal was. He was the only one among them who found no fault with it.

The boy, called Sai, couldn't have been a more strange or irritating teammate to have around. His introduction had been shocking and annoying, and it had made Yamato very angry with him. He had apparently disobeyed Yamato's order to stay put and wait for him, and had decided to investigate his teammates all on his own. After being soundly beaten by Naruto, he had introduced himself with that disturbing, hollow smile to Sakura and Benedictus.

From that point, Naruto had he had been on bad terms. It was not only his sudden attack, but also his second sentence to Sakura: "My, you're a very ugly girl."

It had taken both Naruto and Benedictus to restrain the girl, who looked like she had wanted to murder the boy in a single blow. It had taken until Yamato had arrived, to calm her sufficiently to let go. Since, however, she had let go of her anger. That was something that Naruto was incapable of. Everything the boy did—his actions, his words, his dainty and pretty boy looks—with his smooth black hair, perfectly done; his big black eyes, his smooth, feminine face, and even his weird clothes: a pair of black pants and a small black skin-tight shirt which exposed part of his belly—but most especially that smile which he would occasionally pin on his face, even at the most inappropriate of times, served only to annoy Naruto.

But luckily, Naruto rarely spent time with him. In travel he would always move as far away as possible, hoping that whatever Sai said would be carried away by the wind. During their nightly and morning camps, he would refuse to speak to the boy in anything other than terse words, fearing that prolonged conversation would lead to another fight.

But often during these camping sessions, Naruto and Yamato would vanish into the forest, with Yamato's strict orders for none of them to follow. Benedictus had no particular care, and spent most of his time asleep, or if awake he would stare off into the distance, leaving Sakura and Sai alone.

Sakura, though annoyed in general by Sai's difficult personality, tried to be friendly as possible. The first day they had been together, Yamato had said to all of them:

"I want you to be coherent team. I realize that you have only just met, and it hasn't been on particularly good terms," he glared at Sai, "but I want you to be a team. That's an order. Try to be friends, that's all I'm saying."

Being the good girl she was, she attempted to do just that.

"So, Sai—do you have any family?"

The boy smiled. "No. They are dead. I did have a brother once, but he's dead too."

Sakura frowned, mostly because the boy said everything without emotion, as if he had rehearsed it, or read it from a book. "I'm sorry…" she said, however.

Another smile. "It's fine. He wasn't even my brother by blood." He cocked his head. "What about you?"

"Both parents are alive, but I don't have any brothers or sisters," she said.

"I see."

"When did you become a _chuunin?_" she asked.

"Two years ago. But I'm not a real _chuunin_." He said, still smiling. "I'm part of a special ANBU group."

"Like Yamato-taichou?" Sakura suddenly asked. Kakashi had told her a little about the man after the meeting that had sent them on the trip.

"No," Sai said. "Different. We are more…secretive."

"Oh…" she responded.

Their conversations never got farther than that. All she learned about him were what new classmates learned about each other on the first day of school. It didn't seem to be going any farther, either. Sai seemed unable to spark any sort of lasting conversation, and with each one, Sakura became more disturbed by him. She was sure Yamato saw it, and Naruto and Benedictus too.

This boy had no emotions.

"You're doing better."

Naruto collapsed, exhausted. He dropped the leaf he was holding to the ground, and glared at it as if it were a demon. "Stupid leaf. Just fall apart."

"You've got the technique and the mindset. You just need to train a bit more. Remember, it takes most months to learn this. You'll probably have it by the end of the week, shorter, if you can find a place suitable to as many _Kage Bunshin _as you can."

Naruto and Yamato left camp every night for one or two hours, and in that time Yamato oversaw Naruto's elemental training. The boy had a great grasp of it already, but only in certain forms. He seemed to have convinced himself that he could only use it to enhance his speed to a degree—and even that was mostly leg strength with a slight _chakra _boost. Yamato had limited him to fifty clones, not wanting to draw attention to their training, or make Sakura—or worse—Sai, investigate.

"Why can't they see this?"

"I can't answer that just yet," Yamato said. "You'll know soon enough."

Naruto paused a moment. "Why the hell, then, is that _guy_…" he couldn't even say Sai's name without becoming irritated, "even here? What the hell is wrong with him?"

"I don't know. He has always been like that, since I have met him." His eyes narrowed. "All I can say is that try to be friends with him. The worst thing for a team is a fracture like this. You should know."

Naruto bit back whatever he was going to say. The man was right.

"And what's with his weird abilities?"

"We all have our strong points. His happens to be his artistic ability. I don't know anything more about his power other than it uses special ink to animate drawn pictures. Rather like summoning, I suppose." He looked back. "Let's return. Unfortunately we won't be able to train once we reach the desert—it's too open."

Naruto couldn't obey Yamato's words. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn't stand Sai. The boy seemed to go out of his way to annoy Naruto. He had no concept of social interaction, and Naruto couldn't get out of his head the boy's first words. What kind of weirdo said that to someone he'd just met?

What kind of weirdo said that at all?

They traveled for the next two days. The desert days were hotter than Naruto remembered, and the nights were even colder. The portal was some distance away from the Sand, so they caught no sight or sign of civilization for some time. People spoke less during the march through the desert; but the only ones who seemed unaffected were Benedictus and Sai; Benedictus walked behind them, and seemed wrapped in perpetual cool air; and Sai, who never stopped his queer smile and annoying actions. Naruto would never go on a trip like that again.

Only his excitement in returning to Stormwind kept him sane.

It was just an hour before noon on the fifth day of travel that they finally reached their destination. It appeared as a black dot on the horizon, and slowly grew larger and larger, gaining shape and even beginning to move. Naruto began to smell humans and the oily smell of gnomes in the distance, and increased his pace. Surprisingly, so did Benedictus, striding ahead of all the rest, until they reached the small settlement.

The portal loomed, foreign, above everything else. There was a glossy sheen within it, depicting the massive chrome room beyond of Gnomeregan. Surrounding it were small metal houses, large enough just for a man to fit in. A group of Sand-nin stood in the middle of the largest row of houses, which led up to the portal. They were talking to a group of gnomes before them.

"Oh, you've come back!"

One of the gnomes, with a short, graying beard, rushed immediately up to Benedictus. His eyes were wide and worried. "We didn't think you'd come so quickly! We just sent out the missive two days ago!"

"Pardon?" said Benedictus, frowning at the gnome. "What do you mean? Is something wrong?"

"Very," the gnome said, before he caught himself. "I mean, yes. Something is very wrong, Archbishop, sir. His Highness the High Tinker needs to see you. Right away. Something bad has happened in Gnomeregan."

Benedictus frowned deeply. His golden eyes darkened, and he held himself upright suddenly. He turned briskly to Yamato. "It seems we must make haste. I will lead the way."

Yamato nodded, slightly put off by the old man's sudden presence. It was oddly familiar. "Of course." He nodded to his team. "Let's go."

------------------

There was hardly time for any of the shinobi save Naruto to be surprised by the massive room they entered. The portal had been a strange experience—their bodies had tingled as if their limbs had gone to sleep, but they didn't fall. But otherwise, it was not unlike stepping through a wall of falling water. They simply stepped through, and the hot air vanished, replaced by the cool interior of Gnomeregan. The desert winds stopped blowing. The sounds familiar to them vanished. Replacing them was everything mechanical. It was like stepping into a giant, ticking clock, filled with thousands of other clocks. There were no humans in the room save them; all the rest were gnomes and strange mechanical beings shaped like gnomes, but made of red metal and beeping loudly. It smelled almost of a blacksmith's shop, only cleaner and cooler. Immediately upon stepping through the portal, they were mobbed by a group of gnomes, all yammering in distressed voices.

Mekkatorque's voice broke it up. "Clear off! I have business with them!"

He sounded distressed, and Naruto was reminded a little of the Mekkatorque he had first met: the biting little creature that had lost faith in everything. Mekkatorque walked, unimpeded, up to Benedictus.

"You were in transit, already, weren't you?"

"Indeed. It seems we were fortunate enough. What has happened?"

"I'll tell you later. We must make haste to Stormwind, of course. Lady Kira will no doubt need her advisor at this point. We shall take the tram."

He nodded briefly to Naruto, looking desperate, smiled as best he could at Sakura (with a worried glance at her arm), and gave nods to both Sai and Yamato, whom he had never met. "Forgive me," he said. "That we could not meet on better terms. But there is a crisis that cannot easily be solved."

"What's going on, Mekkatorque-ossan?" Naruto asked.

"Your old friends, boy. The Scarlet Crusade. They've stolen my plans for this portal. It seems they wish to get into your world, and I am at a loss at what to do."

* * *

There's nothing much to say about this chapter. I don't expect to get many reviews for it (though a few would be nice…hint hint), but I did enjoy it. Sorry for being late, I have no excuse other than laziness for it.

It gave all sorts of explanations in this chapter about the nature of _jutsu_ and _chakra_, and about Kakashi's ability. I doubt Kakashi's ability is activated in the same way, but I don't care enough to wait, and it seems natural that an explanation should be given about it. I thought I should explain the ice _jutsu_ thing as well, and at least get Naruto started on his elemental training.

Sakura's wound will not be resolved that easily, of course. It will have an immediate consequence. You'll see next chapter. That one will have a little more action in it, hopefully. It will also truly begin the arc.

Sai—yes, he's here. He is canon, for those who don't know. I don't like him, but I feel I should use him, anyways. He'll play a larger part, later. The next arc will hopefully be a thousand times better than the previous. I can only hope.

For all that I did in this chapter (which was not much, to say the least) I enjoyed it. I felt I explained a few things that needed explaining, even if it took me quite a while to explain them. Tell me if it was too long. It probably was, but I tried to get rid of as much extraneous stuff as I could. It was a rather light-hearted chapter, overall, and set up a bunch of things to take place later in the plot.

Kyuubi revealed. Nothing special here.

Lastly—Sai's famous quote: I've been wanting to do that for ages, in some form of story. It's not a Naruto-esque response, but it's one of the two responses for that situation.

Well, that's it. Hopefully see you next week, though I might not—I'll be gone all weekend, without access to a computer. If I do a shorter chapter, I might, however.

Seeya!

General Grievous


	10. Back

**Disclaimer: Bah! I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft!**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Naruto stared for a moment at the old gnome, unbelieving.

"What?"

Mekkatorque looked at Naruto pointedly. "The Scarlet Crusade, Naruto."

Benedictus' face, a moment before kind and grandfatherly, became cold as granite. He suddenly looked years older, an ancient statue within the modern world. "Is that so? Then let us make haste to Stormwind. You may tell us on the way."

Mekkatorque nodded, and continued on his way without another word. Naruto hurried after him, and Benedictus as well. The old man strode ahead of all of them, save Mekkatorque, who moved remarkably swift for his stumpy legs. After them came Sakura, Sai and Yamato—Yamato was frowning, not knowing what was happening but understanding the gravity. Sakura recognized the name, but nothing else. Sai remained emotionless, but he was no longer smiling.

They traveled across the gargantuan room, and into an even bigger one. It was shaped like an egg and as massive as the training area of Konoha, stretching so far up that it seemed to stretch into the heavens. It was loud, with the clunking and whirring of machines, high-pitched shouts of gnomes from all around, and the steady pitter-patter of small feet on the metal floor. Sakura was amazed by every bit of it, but had no time to gaze in any sort of glory before they had entered a small room, an elevator, just to the left of the door they emerged from. She felt bereft when the doors closed, shielding her eyes from the wondrous sight.

Nobody said a thing.

When they exited the elevator, they found themselves in a long, narrow, and cramped corridor that seemed to have no end. It stretched into silent blackness. Mekkatorque went forwards, then Benedictus, then Naruto, and then the rest, more tentatively. The corridor stretched on for quite a distance, and was completely uniform in style. There were no other branching tunnels. Combined with the silence, Sakura began to feel slightly uncomfortable. It was nothing like she had expected. But then again, both Naruto and Benedictus seemed to share her thoughts. Something was wrong. They had not expected their return to be as such.

They reached the end abruptly; there was little hint that it was coming, for the darkness was just as great. Mekkatorque strode into the darkened room, turned behind him, and pressed something on the wall that made a clicking noise. The room filled with light; and they found it was not a room at all.

They were in the middle of a huge tunnel, as wide as about two dozen men standing side by side, and tall enough that Sakura needed to crane her neck as far as it would go to see the top. They stood on a large, metal platform, which was raised about eight feet off the ground. In front of them, stretching into either direction, were three long metal bars, the middle slightly higher than the others. High above on the ceiling was another bar, thicker and taller than the rest, covered in burn marks.

"It shall be here in a moment," said Mekkatorque, calmly.

"What?" asked Yamato, walking up beside Sakura and looking around. His big brown eyes searched every bit of the room, and his body was tense. Even among friends he was quick to react.

"The Deeprun Tram. So far it is the fastest way between two points save for teleportation, which has yet to be installed in either Stormwind or Ironforge, and is far too costly in energy. It will take us over four hours to reach Stormwind from here."

"How far is it?"

"Over six hundred miles."

Sakura's eyes grew wide. "But that's…" she stopped herself. "But how is that possible?"

"You shall soon find out," Mekkatorque said, somehow finding the will to smile proudly at the girl.

"Then in the meantime, explain to us how this has occurred," said Benedictus, his face still frozen. "What has occurred since our departure? Why would the Scarlet Crusade seek, and moreover know, of this portal's existence?"

"I do not know," said Mekkatorque. "It seems impossible for either. There is not a single gnome in my city that would dare betray us, especially to the Scarlet Crusade. We are hated as equally as the Forsaken, and perhaps every other non-human race that exists in this world. Yet, the only way I can possibly conceive of them knowing is a spy among us; perhaps some Crusader skilled enough in the arts of deception that they may enter of their own free-will. I cannot say. But that hardly matters at this point."

Benedictus nodded once. "Indeed. Can they work this device, should they build it?"

"I don't imagine how," muttered Mekkatorque. "They are not in possession of the one item that would allow them." He glanced at Naruto. "The pendant of Lady Kira's mother. The special stone that transported Naruto here in the first place."

"So there is no other way?" Benedictus asked.

"None that I know of."

"There is likely another way," said Yamato, suddenly breaking in. Both of the older men looked at him. His large eyes were hard. "The organization known as Akatsuki seems to possess such a power that they might have a portal of their own. If that is true then not only do they possess the same power source as you, but it means that there is more of such power out there. Perhaps this Crusade…whatever it is…is in possession of something similar."

"With my luck, you are correct," said Mekkatorque. "I have been praying that they might not have such a thing, and therefore have increased the security around the portal. There is no way that any single person will be able to steal it. But if what I fear is true, then they might not have any need to steal it. Therefore the situation is far more serious."

Before anything else could be said, a great rumbling filled the cavern. Following that came the screeching of metal on metal, and the right of the cavern suddenly filled with light. From the tunnel emerged the strangest contraption any of the shinobi, save Naruto, had ever seen. It was a large platform, mounted on the tracks, surrounded by a bubble of glass with steel girders bent around it. A large claw-like, chrome-colored apparatus attached it to the track on the ceiling, which glittered with sparks as it moved to a steady stop before them on the platform. A strong smell of fire and gas accompanied the tram, assaulting them as soon as it stopped. Then a small section of the glass parted, allowing them inside.

"Let's go," said Mekkatorque. They all went in, and the glass door returned to its original position. Inside was surprisingly large, with four long, comfortable brown leather couches and a small round, metal table in the middle. Slots for luggage and other goods were imbedded into the bottoms of the couches, which the four shinobi immediately made use of. Mekkatorque went to the back of the tram and began fiddling with a panel there, gesturing for everyone to sit. When they had done so, the tram jerked into movement, and they were off into the darkened tunnel, enrobed in the pale glow of a light directly above them, barely enough to reveal their faces.

"Tell me," Yamato then said, when Mekkatorque had taken his seat, next to Naruto. "What is their motive? What is their intention to entering our world? Who are these 'Scarlet Crusade'?"

"They are a fanatical organization created some years ago," said Benedictus, his voice resounding powerfully in the tram. "An off-shoot of a much more…well-adjusted group, called the Argent Dawn. They sought originally to destroy the Scourge, and continue to do so."

"Ah," Yamato recalled what Benedictus had said earlier about the Scourge, in the briefing for this mission. "Is that not good?"

"Oh yes," said Benedictus. "In the same way it is good for an insect to destroy a particularly invasive weed, and then continue on to devour whatever other plants it finds. Make no mistake, the Scarlet Crusade is right in their efforts. The Scourge is a menace upon this world; the plague that afflicts them turns them little more than mindless walking corpses, who are driven by the two most basic and constant human desires: to devour and consume; and to hate. They will destroy this world eventually, if they are not stopped. But the Scarlet Crusade do more than destroy the Scourge. They _hate _it with every fiber of their being, to the point of fanaticism.

"But it is far worse than that. It is more than religious fervor that drives them. I am convinced of it. Naruto's dealings with them prove that."

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked, glancing at Naruto.

"Kira-chan, Kylia and me went to their headquarters, a monastery near Sylvanas-baba," the boy said. "Their leaders are supposed to be dead now, though, and from what I last heard, it was burned down. So why are they still…?"

"Unfortunately, you hardly destroyed them. Whitemane, the leader of the monastery, was but an officer in their army. She was not the leader. That title belongs to someone they call the Grand Crusader, who governs from the very center of the Scarlet Crusade's power—the city of Stratholme, high up north in a place known as the Plaguelands," said Benedictus.

"That is their main power base, and therefore where most of their army resides. But let's return to the topic at hand. Their motive, mister Yamato, is that they have none apparent. They are not driven by logic. They are driven by emotion—pure, unbridled rage and hate enough to make a city long since destroyed still burn. The Scarlet Crusade's hate is completely unnatural, and illogical. No man can sacrifice his humanity so swiftly as those of the Crusade. They hate not just the Scourge and those that look like them, the Forsaken, but they hate anything that does not resemble human. Elves of all sort, orcs, trolls, dwarves, gnomes and others who bear the title of "non-human" are mercilessly destroyed should they ever fall into the clutches of the Crusade. But it is not limited there. They do the very same to humans—their own kind—destroying them in the vilest way you can imagine. The only things pure, in their eyes, are those that wear the blood-stained tabard of the Scarlet Crusade." He let out a long breath, almost a sigh. "It is difficult to have faith in humankind when you see what the Scarlet Crusade can do, and know that there is nothing behind it but raw hate."

"And so they are trying to come into our world," said Yamato. "Because they want to exterminate us, or get new members? Convince us that the Scourge and everything else are monsters that need to be destroyed?"

"Yes," said Benedictus. "Even now, they see us as 'friends'. The Church of Holy Light, of which I am head of, is in their eyes the last bastion of human reason in Stormwind. They follow its teachings as closely as we. But the only thing that I can see that makes them differ from the Scourge is that they do not consume the flesh of humans." He turned his head to the side, looking as if he wanted to spit, but didn't, as they were in a closed space. Instead he simply grimaced.

Yamato softly nodded. His large brown eyes glittered as he switched his gaze from Benedictus to Mekkatorque. "And this place—Stratholme—is where you believe the plans have been taken?"

"Either there or Tyr's Hand, which lies in the same area. Either way, it poses an incredible problem."

Yamato nodded. "You're not confident that you can slip in, and steal it back?"

"No," said Mekkatorque. "I believe that would be possible, if it were just the Scarlet Crusade that we had to deal with. Stratholme was a prosperous city up until years ago, when the plague descended upon it. That's why they call the area the Plaguelands; it is the first place it hit, and therefore the most tainted. The city of Stratholme then became a veritable necropolis; for the half that is not occupied by the Scarlet Crusade, is inhabited by the Scourge. They are locked in constant battle. They intend to build this portal in order to win that war. Can you imagine it?"

"They intend to find shinobi," said Sakura, her eyes widening. "And convert them, right?"

"Precisely," muttered Benedictus. "I know not how, but they have found the existence of shinobi, likely from Naruto's presence, and intend to convert them to fight against the Scourge."

"But that doesn't make sense," said Yamato.

"Oh?"

"The world of shinobi do not carry the same prejudices as this one. The people are not capable of the same hate as those that know and have dealt with this Scourge as much as they." He then frowned. "Granted, it would not take much for some. Many of the smaller shinobi villages would be willing to join for the simple power base. The Scarlet Crusade must be strong, and possess a large army, correct?"

"It is massive. It equals that of the standing armies of both Ironforge and Stormwind. It grows stronger and more numerous with each passing day, as well," said Benedictus. "But you should also fear the fact that their hate is unnatural. They have some means of converting that I do not know of, and that method seems to birth these vengeful, hateful people."

Yamato went silent. His eyes turned downwards, and his brow wrinkled in thought. He was greatly troubled by this, not only because now there didn't seem to be much that could be done, but also there were far too many unknowns.

The most worrying of them was that if they opened the portal, where would it open to?

* * *

Kira rolled the animal skin scroll back up, handing it back to Sir Eric. "Good," she said, sighing in relief. "They've agreed to come."

Kylia smiled in relief. "That is good news."

Kira nodded. The message, written on the skin of a small rabbit, had come from Thrall, Vol'jin and Cairn, a few minutes earlier. It had been just over three days since her messages to them had left, urging for a meeting. A day previous she had gotten word from Sylvanas, the one who had worried her most. The Banshee Queen had agreed to come, on the condition that she could bring someone with her. Kira had already sent her reply—"Yes, of course"—assuming that it was nothing more than a small retinue of guards, or perhaps the legendary Dreadlord Varimathras himself. Either way, she was still glad Sylvanas had agreed. Recently she had heard little from the banshee, leading Kira to believe she had other things to do that concerned her own nation. Sylvanas was above all a very private person, and detested contact with anybody other than her own kind. They had not returned to Stormwind since they had delivered their supplies months ago, during the rebuilding of the city.

"Mekkatorque, King Magni and Tyrande have already sent their word," said Kira, remembering the other three letters. "Then it's set. The first meeting will be in a week." Then, she sighed. "But I'm still worried."

"It's better to worry and be cautious," said Sir Eric, calmly. "My father always told me that, my lady. This is a very serious matter, so it must be handled with every care. But we all have confidence in your abilities. You will represent the human race with all our pride. Don't forget that." He gave her a kind, handsome smile. She blinked at him, and then returned it, her body seeming to glow.

"You're right," she said. "Because it must be done."

"What of Archbishop Benedictus, and Naruto?" asked Kylia. Kira's glow faded, and her eyes dulled.

"I haven't heard anything from them yet. It would be difficult to get a message there, anyways. I don't want to ruin things if they are still trying to work it out. It would be presumptuous if I sent word for a meeting before they've even agreed to anything."

"They've had several weeks," said Sir Eric. "Would it not be prudent to think they could have done it then?"

"I don't know. But I can't do anything yet," Kira said. "Let's focus on something more immediate."

"Such as?"

Kira blushed prettily. "I'm hungry. Want to stop by the kitchens, Kylia? They've just started up again."

Sir Eric chuckled. In some respects, she was still the same adventurous little girl he had first met years ago, when he had first been assigned to the castle as a guard. She was nearly a queen, and she still had to nick things from the kitchens. For all her adult nature, she was still in some ways a cute girl.

"Then I'll leave, and I hope you enjoy your meal, my lady," he said, with a deep bow and another handsome smile. "I hope to have more reports for you tomorrow."

"Thank you, Sir Eric," Kira said. The man departed the Great Hall with determined steps; before Kira and Kylia left as well. It was the most complete room in the castle, and would be the setting for their meeting, just as Anduin had held all of the Council meetings there. It was larger, and made of a much smoother stone than before; the windows were immense, and seemed to magnify the brightness of the sun that poured through them. The largest window at the very end of the room was made of stained glass, and showed her father dressed in full armor and robed in light. She liked that part the most.

Outside the Great hall were a series of corridors stretching in several directions: one leading to the stairs, one to the unfinished gardens, one to the main entrance, and one to the servants quarters. The kitchen lay on a lower floor, nearer to the Deeprun tram. It was bigger than ever before, and Kira had needed to higher twice the number of cooks—two of them orcs—to make use of the whole thing. She went there most frequently, as there she did not have to think about things much. She could just eat and talk with the cooks, most of whom she knew from her childhood. She could forget about her problems.

Something that at times, she sorely needed.

"Kylia, do you remember all the times we went to the kitchens as children?"

"Yes."

Kira smiled. "Do you remember anything before that? I can only remember snatches—like my mom, my dad, and playing a lot in the garden before you arrived."

"I remember your mother too," said Kylia. "She was the kindest woman I had ever met."

"She was…wasn't she?" Kira stared at the floor. She did this so long, that she did not notice a figure suddenly appear in front of her, and only just heard Kylia's sudden shout of attention.

Kira collided with the stranger roughly, for he had been taking very determined strides. And being slighter than he, she fell backwards, landing on her butt. She winced in pain, glancing up to see his face, and perhaps rebuke him sharply.

"Kira-chan…?"

The words slipped from her grasp like water.

It couldn't be. He was here. Now. It was his voice, his face, and his clothes.

His eyes, like blue suns.

Even his smell, like spices and trees.

"Naruto!"

* * *

She leapt to her feet, continuing up and into the air and landing roughly on top of Naruto. She wrapped her hands like a vice around him; burying her face into his neck with such passion and joy that Naruto was stunned into inaction by its intimacy. He stood stock still while she did this, hugging him so tightly that it seemed like she would never let go. He had gotten a brief look at her face, as well, and it contained on it such a look of joy that he had never seen. Nobody had ever looked at him like that.

"My," said Benedictus, from behind the boy. "I think we may have stumbled on to something intimate. Perhaps we should come back a little later."

Mekkatorque managed a snort. "Children."

Yamato raised an eyebrow.

Sai cocked his head to the side, as if puzzled.

Sakura stared at the scene with wide eyes. She too had seen the look in Kira's eyes. For some reason, she hadn't liked it. Not at all. Her hand became a fist. Her eye twitched not unlike how it had when Ino had clung to Sasuke, years ago.

Oddly, Kylia's did the same.

"Uhm…" Naruto said, blushing. "Hey, Kira-chan. H-how are you?"

The girl finally seemed to notice her place, blushed brighter than ever, and immediately stepped back. But she still had the same smile.

"You're back," she said in a breath. "Finally."

"You seem to forget he is the only one to have returned," said Benedictus.

"Sorry, master," she said, immediately hurrying to him, and giving him a large, loving hug. "I'm glad you're back as well."

"As you should be," said Benedictus. "For we have news."

She glanced up at him. "News? Is it good?"

"Moderately, I suppose."

* * *

"I've called you today because of an event that will change a lot for you and the people of the Fire Country," Tsunade boomed over the silent crowd of shinobi that lay before her, crowded into every nook and cranny of the street before the Hokage's Tower, perched on roofs and poles, gazing in confusion, admiration, and for some, calm contentment. The remainder of the Rookie Nine, Team Gai and their teachers stood in the front of the crowd.

The Hokage herself was flanked by Izumo and Kotetsu, and the entire Council of Konoha stood a little ways to the side, watching with disgruntled features. Jiraiya stood a little to the side, his face grave.

"This world was once thought to be the only one we would ever know. Many of you have never even considered the possibility that there might be others. I hardly know a soul who cares to think of things outside this very continent, when it is assured there are others out there. They are not our affairs. They never were." She fell silent for a while, letting them frown at her and become puzzled.

"But that has changed." The mutterings stopped instantly. "Nearly a year and a half ago, we discovered the existence of another world. Not another continent, but a world beyond ours, parallel to it, and far older." She ignored the gasps and growing confusion. "A world that once was completely separate from ours, but at this point, is no longer.

"You might think, 'Why does this concern us?', and you have a point. What use does it have for us? We have no enemies that we cannot defeat, with our power and will. We have a peaceful city, and a way of life that has served us for generations and generations, and hopefully will continue to. We have a beautiful world all our own, with allies and friends, and there is nothing to suggest that this other world should concern us in any way. Because, should it, we would inevitably be caught up in its conflicts and prejudices, something that would just cause deaths of our people and the destruction of our way of life. So, as I asked myself many times, why does this matter concern us?

"I have found an answer. It has taken me awhile to accept it, as I know it will take you all awhile, but please listen. I have heard of the plights of that world. They are immense, and many, and make ours seem petty in comparison. But more so, there are people just like us in that world, people who have only wanted to preserve their own way of living, but having not the power, and thus not the ability, to do so. They are like us, but cannot defend themselves against their enemies. Is it not according to the law of human decency that if they asked, we should aid them?

"Stop," she snarled, to a few raised protests. "Allow me to finish. That is not the whole reason. The full reason is that our world and theirs have not been so separate as we first imagined. It seems that in the recent past, they have entwined, and now the evils that assault their world are being brought by shinobi into this world. There is an organization that possesses the power to travel between this world and the next, who seek to destroy our way of life. They are called Akatsuki. Nine of the most fearsome missing-nin in history, which possess knowledge of that world to use against us at any point. They have already used it against the Sand. We are at great risk from them, perhaps even more so than Orochimaru and his Hidden Sound.

"With this threat against us, we are at an immediate disadvantage. But those of the other world are in the same situation. They know little about ours, just as we know little about theirs. Both of our ways of life are now threatened. So why not join? They have proposed to us a mission of the greatest importance. An S-class mission will be mandatory for every _jounin _and _chuunin_ on active duty, and optional for those _genin_ teams who are believed to be ready. There will be required training sessions for all those planning to take part in this mission, with pay of course. From this moment on, we are the official tools of their armies. We will show them our power, which is greater than any other. We will receive economic benefits in the forms of dozens of new materials not found in this world, abilities and _jutsu_ that have not been discovered, and all manner of things to improve our way of life, and assure our safety in the future. Our "Will of Fire" burns stronger than anything in this world or the next, and we will show them all that Konohagakure is the strongest village in history.

"We cannot stave off change. We never could. But we can adapt, as we always have, as our ancestors did, as we did after many wars, and a demonic attack, and a betrayal. Konoha will never fall. I know you all believe that. So I ask you one final time: Why does this concern us? It concerns us because though we are called 'tools' of war, each one of us has the spirit of a thousand; we have what so many others lack—a will. It is that will that will keep us burning long into the future. We are not merely tools, as so many shinobi believe. Because tools can break, and fall out of use; but there is not one here that will ever break or become useless; because as long as you have but one spark of life in your breast, you will be somebody, and you will matter. You will help those that cannot help themselves, because your will allows you to.

"You are all shinobi of the Leaf. We will show Akatsuki, Orochimaru, and any other who tries to pit themselves against us, what that truly means, as I know all of you know."

Her eyes swept the silent crowd. The heat of a raging inferno seemed to rise from it, as if the people were not people, but the crests of the brightest, hottest flames. She smiled.

"Conscription forms will be sent out by tomorrow. Expect missions involving this to show up in the next few weeks. Dismissed."

* * *

"You did it! You really did!" Kira cried an hour later, after all the specifics of Konoha's addition to the New Alliance had been explained to her. Her eyes were lit up with wondrous light, her mouth slightly parted in a gigantic smile, and the stress that had been steadily piling up for the past few weeks was blown away in an instant. "How could that not be great news?"

Benedictus smiled, giving a slight shrug. "It depends on how you look at it. We are, after all, giving up an enormous amount of money to finance this. Not only that, but we are treading a thin line. We must introduce them into this world, showing them the benefits of a true alliance. I will leave that to you, my dear, as I know you shall be good at it."

Kira nodded. "Thank you." She turned to Naruto. "Thank you, Naruto. Again."

The boy smiled. "Don't mention it, Kira-chan."

Kira's eyes drifted to Sakura, Sai and Yamato. Yamato stood by the door, observing the majesty of the Great Hall with his large brown eyes. Sai sat on the other side of the door, engrossed in a small green book, which he was drawing in. Sakura sat next to Naruto, glancing between the blonde and the rest of the room.

"And you three as well. I know it shouldn't be you whom I thank, I feel that I must, since you are giving up so much to help us."

Yamato gave her a slight smile, and a bow. "Which hopefully will be returned two-fold. It isn't like we aren't benefiting from this as well. There will no doubt be dissenters of opinion, but such is true of every alliance."

Kira nodded.

"Lady Kira," said Mekkatorque, clearing his throat. "As joyful as I am at this news, I feel that the other matter must be addressed."

The girl sobered. "Yes," she said sitting straight up, all forms of joy slipping from her features. "You're right. What is to be done?"

"That's easy," Naruto said. "We go get those plans back." He ignored the looks of surprise from most of the occupants and continued. "We're a shinobi team, right? Well, we're probably the best things you've got right now to get them back. And it concerns us anyways." He glanced at Yamato. "Right, Yamato-taichou?"

The young man glanced at him passively. "Technically, we are not at liberty to do anything. Tsunade-sama's specific orders were to remain here for as long as needed, then return." He held up a hand to stop Naruto protesting. "But that doesn't mean we will do nothing. It seems that we are needed, and that need requires us to go elsewhere. And if what Kira-sama says is true, then Tsunade-sama might be traveling here soon anyways."

"Yes," said Kira, standing up immediately. "I'll prepare a message to be sent. She should be at the talk as well, to get familiar with the other leaders." She then sat back down, looking distressed. "But is this all you'll need? It will be incredibly dangerous where you're going, and you're going to need some help."

"I would normally disagree," said Yamato calmly. "Shinobi work far better in small, four-man cells, no matter how great the enemy is. It allows us to move quickly and in relative obscurity. But there are two reasons why I will make an exception." He glanced at Naruto. "We know only what Naruto knows about this world. As good as his knowledge is, there will doubtlessly be things that he does not know. Therefore, someone familiar with the area would be helpful." Then he glanced at Sakura, his eyes narrowing very slightly.

"The second is that we will need someone to replace Sakura."

"What?" Naruto thundered, exploding from his chair to his feet. "Whaddya mean? Sakura-chan is a part of this team! She's going—"

"She's wounded," said Yamato, calmly. His voice possessed a clear edge of authority. "Kakashi-senpai gave me control of this team for as long as he is not around. Therefore, I can see fit to remove any one of you from action, should it benefit the team and that member." He looked at Sakura. "Because time is of the essence, we cannot remain here for more than a few days. Benedictus-sama, will the treatment for Sakura's wound be completed by then?"

"No," the old man said. "I would hazard a guess that it might take a weak or more before the arm is fully capable of use. The remaining pathogen must be destroyed, and we must find a suitable derivative of the troll's blood potion to heal the nerve damage."

Naruto gripped the table until his hands went white. He glared at Yamato hotly for a moment, then back down at Sakura. Her head hung slightly, so her eyes were invisible to him.

"Sakura-chan…"

"He's right, Naruto," Sakura said, looking up at him. "Not all things can be healed in a wave of the hands. It's lucky that I'll be able to be treated at all. No, I'll stay here until I'm healed." Her lips became a small, determined smile. "When you come back, I'll be fit to rejoin the team. That's a promise."

Naruto looked at her, drooping in posture as his anger began to dissipate. He reflected the smile back at her.

"I'll treat her myself, Naruto," said Kira, quickly. The boy glanced at her. "I'm better at potions than normal healing _jutsu _anyways. I'll have her healed in a few days, guaranteed." She looked at Sakura, smiling. "Is that fine?"

"Yes," Sakura said, her voice oddly terse. She frowned slightly at this, and then said, clearing her throat and giving the other girl a slight smile. "Thank you."

"Then we shall set everything," said Benedictus. "In two days you will leave. In that time, I shall send missives to all those necessary, while you prepare for the mission. Take a walk around the city, and gather whatever supplies you may need. I will arrange for some rooms in the city to be made for you to stay."

"Thank you," said Yamato.

"I'll go too. We'll talk later, okay?" she said to Naruto, smiling. The boy nodded.

"Yeah."

* * *

The next two days were rushed. Immediately after their arrival, Naruto took them into the city, most of which he now knew. He led them down streets, pointing out shops or areas of special interest. He showed them the few weapon shops that he liked, the restaurants that were good, and the most beautiful areas of the city.

And beautiful they were. Though bursting with life, Sakura had never seen anything like it. The roads were made of smooth white stone, which differed greatly from the numerous types of houses that lined the streets. There were ones of solid stone, ones of wood, even ones made solidly of iron and steel. Yet oddly, it fit, and nothing seemed out of place in the city. In fact, it was a little like Konoha, not in structure, but in the peace that she felt from it. Everyone was just trying to live as best they could. She hadn't known what to expect, but these people, despite living in a completely different world, were not so different from herself.

The people themselves were like the houses—so varied in size and shape and color, yet somehow so fitting to the setting. The humans were numerous enough, but she received a fright when upon inspecting a shop window closer, an orc happened to walk up beside her, and do the same thing. She didn't notice him at first, but upon stepping back, became aware of a gigantic green-skinned being, bulging with muscles and sporting huge tusks on either side of his mouth, standing next to her. It took all her will not to scream. He noticed her then as well, and turned to look at her. He gave her a wide smile, and then moved off.

She was wary of the trolls, for they resembled the puppets of Sasori; but she found the language and accents they spoke with delightful. The dwarves and gnomes were as numerous as the humans, due to their proximity, and she saw only one tauren—working on a large, half-finished building near the edge of the city, when Naruto was leading them to a small blacksmiths to have several _kunai _forged at a low price. It was even bigger than an orc, but awesome to behold. It was very kind as well, and even exchanged with Naruto a few words in another language when they passed. The language was hard and guttural, but Sakura liked it. She resolved to ask Naruto to teach her it, when he had the time.

They traveled all over the city, and Sakura loved every bit of it. Yamato confessed he had never been anywhere so amazing and diverse, for once offering one of his handsome smiles as he spoke. Sai found the place peaceful, but rarely spoke; he just smiled, driving Naruto crazy. During this time, Yamato, Naruto and Sai all stocked up on supplies, using some money that Benedictus had given them. They took food, bought several varieties of _kunai_ and _shuriken, _and purchased face masks at Benedictus' request. The Plaguelands was not a safe place for humans, it seemed.

Naruto showed Sakura the graveyard as well, when Yamato and Sai were doing other things. He took her to the small gravesight, where Eliza and her father were buried.

"Hey," he said to her, after staring at the plots for a few moments, "do you ever think of Zabuza or Haku?"

Sakura glanced sideways at him. "Sometimes," she said.

"Do you think anybody visits their graves?"

Sakura was silent.

"Me neither. Don't you think we should go, sometime? They deserve it too." His eyes grew a little hard. "Nobody deserves what they got, or what these people got. We don't even know where some people are buried." He balled his fists. "Don't you think it'd be hell to be forgotten?"

Sakura looked at him again. She smiled. "Nobody will forget them, Naruto. You've made sure of that." She looked back at the plot, bending down. She didn't say anything else, but she felt she understood Naruto a little more than before. So later she thanked him for taking her there. He didn't ask why.

While all this happened, Kira made preparations. She sent off messages by the fastest carrier birds they had to Sylvanas, asking for aid. After all, who better to travel the Plaguelands with than those who knew it so intimately? She also gave Mekkatorque a letter to take back to Naruto's world, and have it sent off to the Hokage. Hopefully it would reach her in time to get her to come. Naruto said that he'd already told Tsuwabuki about it, so hopefully the fox would find some way to convey it to the Hokage.

When she had the time, Kira would talk with Naruto and Sakura, who always tagged along to their meetings. Kira thought it was odd, but didn't comment, and used the chance to get to know Sakura a little better. They had several things in common—that they both practiced medical techniques, both enjoyed reading (though on different subjects), and both were eager to learn more. Yet, they also found it difficult to get along, though neither could truly explain it. Kira found herself disagreeing with the pink-haired shinobi on several issues just because it was the opposite of what Sakura thought. Sakura found the same. Nothing overtly bad happened during these times, yet it was clear that there was some sort of tension between the two girls, which neither could explain.

The day finally came for Naruto's party to leave. They met at the castle, one final time.

"Miss Sakura will be staying in a spare room in the castle, until the treatments are complete," said Benedictus, calmly. "You will meet Matthias outside the city, in the usual place. He will take you as far as Tirisfal Glades, where you shall meet Sylvanas' group. The trip will take about a day and a half, if Matthias is flying."

"And the group will have a medic?" Yamato asked.

"Yes, according to the old snake, at least."

Yamato nodded. "Good."

"The mission is clear, then? You will go to Stratholme, retrieve the plans, and destroy any evidence or people who may be linked with the creation of a portal," said Benedictus. "Return as swiftly as you can. Naruto can call Matthias should anything else occur."

"Fine," said Yamato, "then let's go. Sakura, report to Hokage-sama when she arrives, if she does. If not, then remain here until we contact you."

Sakura nodded. "Okay." She glanced over to Naruto, who looked a little distressed at her being left behind. She gave him a smile.

"Next time, Naruto. Promise."

The blonde flashed her a grin. "Okay. I'll hold you to it, Sakura-chan."

Kira watched the two silently. She stepped forwards, and gave Naruto a regal bow, but managed a smile upon rising from it. "I'm sorry I can't come. I would have liked to, as it would have been just like old times." She straightened, and lost her smile. "You know how dangerous the Scarlet Crusade is, Naruto. Please be careful, and come back soon, okay? We'll need you for these meetings."

"Don't worry, Kira-chan," Naruto said. "We've beat them before, and we can do it again. I'll be back in time to sort out any fights between Sylvanas-baba and Tsunade-baba that'll probably come up." He stuck out a thumb. "Promise!"

Sakura watched as Kira smiled prettily, and mimicked the gesture.

"Goodbye, my boy, and do well," said Benedictus. His eyes went to Yamato and Sai. "And good luck to you as well. The group you will be meeting are Naruto's comrades, so fear not for interruption of your regular group dynamics. You are the senior officer, Yamato; they will defer to you, as we have indicated, should a situation arise."

The young man nodded. "Very well."

They exchanged a final few words of departure, and then left.

* * *

"She says to expect a message from the Princess of Stormwind in a few days, about a meeting," said Kiba, rising from beside Akamaru and looking straight towards the Hokage. "That's what Akamaru says, at least. She also says that Naruto, Yamato-san and somebody named Sai are going out on a mission to retrieve some plans or something. Says it's pretty high-priority, and that they'll do it as quickly as possible. Sakura's not going with them, 'cause of her injury." Shino kicked him in the shin from behind, making him straighten and stammer out, "S-sir, I mean, Hokage-sama!"

Tsunade frowned from behind her hands. "Is that so? Looks like I'm going to be making a trip, then."

"Is that wise?" Shizune asked, where she stood next to Tsunade's chair, clutching Tonton in her arms. "Is it safe for you to be leaving the village at this point?"

"It's better than what the future will bring," muttered Tsunade. "I can predict that it will be the last time I leave for a while. But even so, you're right—I'll need a few bodyguards that I can trust."

"Jiraiya-sama?"

"I said trust, Shizune," the woman muttered, rolling her eyes. She looked sharply at Kurenai and her team. "You guys, gather up two more teams, will you? And Shizune, get me Kakashi, when he gets back from his mission. And somebody find Jiraiya, too, I suppose; I'll have to leave someone to look after things."

The four of them bowed, saying in unison, "Of course, Hokage-sama." And left the room at once.

"I've a question, Tsunade-sama," whispered Shizune, when they had departed.

"What is it?"

"If you leave, will that not allow him to…?"

"He wouldn't dare, at this point," said Tsunade, breathing frost. "He hasn't got enough support. A coup wouldn't sustain, not yet." Her eyes narrowed. "But this meeting better be over quickly. After that speech I gave…things might slowly turn in his favor. I don't believe I made a lot of friends with it."

Shizune stayed silent. Her eyes flew out the window, towards the darkening sky. The village beneath the tower looked somehow different to her.

Things were changing, far too rapidly for anyone to comprehend.

* * *

The forest was dead silent. There was no gust of wind, so no leaves rustled in the night air, and no trees swayed and brushed each other. No owl hooted, no squirrels chattered, nor did any rabbit scurry across the leafy ground of the forest. Even the river far below, pinned between two large cliffs, seemed to make any sound at all. It was impossible to see the water in the dark, and thus it could not be said if it was moving or not.

Between the two canyons was a large bridge. The walkway, about ten feet wide was made of solid black wood, while the railings and supports were white as snow, and bound with thick ropes. More ropes suspended the bridge, which arced up, over the canyon. The bridge did not look particularly old, but in fact it was; it had existed there for over a hundred years, made from some of the finest wood that the world had ever seen. Nobody knew quite who had created it, whether shinobi or tradesmen. But its name was known widely throughout the five countries that bordered it—the Bridge of Heaven and Earth.

A lone figure stood in the very middle of the bridge. It was dressed in a white cloak, which hung limp like excess skin over his body. It was looking out across the canyon, towards the bright moon that lit the sky.

There was a slight ruslting in the trees to the figure's right. He turned. From the dark trees, a single black form materialized, accompanied by the beautiful tinkling of a bell.

The figure turned to meet it.

"Sasori-danna."

The figure walked slowly towards him, the bell tinkling. It stopped a few paces away.

"So you've remembered?"

A pair of glasses flickered in the moonlight. There was a small smile attached to the handsome face of a young man with hair the color of the full moon. Yakushi Kabuto nodded, and gave a soft bow to the man before him.

"Yes. I am at your service, Sasori-danna."

The bell rang again.

"...Are you?"

* * *

Shorter chapter, and again, sorry for not much happening, and for the lateness. Had to get a few explanations out of the way, set up the next few chapters, and a lot of other stuff. I enjoyed writing it again, but I don't expect to get many reviews for it. If anybody disagrees with something, go ahead and say, and I'll try my best to defend my actions, as I always do.

Next chapter: Naruto, Yamato and Sai reach Tirisfal, and meet their helpers. A shock for all (both reader and characters). Sakura's dealings with Kira back in Stormwind. The trek through the Plaguelands, towards the burning city. Sasori and Kabuto's meeting. A whole lot of dark happenings.

Yes, there will be fighting in the next chapter. Don't worry. I've already started it, so it should be up earlier than this past one.

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

General Grievous

* * *

Nerf druids. Buff shamans.

-Noz


	11. Blood and Hate

**Disclaimer: This is a disclaimer. Imagine what is supposed to be here. **

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Sai frowned at his sketchbook, which now contained a dark smudge from where his brush had struck the paper a little too violently. The shaking and rumbling of the zeppelin, the humming engines, turning propellers, roaring of wind, the yelling of men, and the distant hissing of fire and steam was so loud that he could barely paint a stroke before he was interrupted by someone or something.

'_How annoying,'_ he thought. He turned his head slightly at that thought. That was what he was supposed to think, right? He couldn't actually say if he was annoyed or not. It was becoming difficult to paint, and so he decided he'd stop. There was no point in painting crude pictures. He glanced around. All he saw were strange men, lounging about, laughing occasionally, all deep in conversations that Sai did not understand. He wondered why they laughed at some of the comments they made—they weren't really all that funny, were they? What was so funny about comparing the backside of a horse to one's mother? He knew the term was something like "banter," or perhaps "joking", but what was so amusing about it?

He didn't understand.

He sighed. Oh well. There were other things to do. He stood, walked over to the railing, and peered over the side, where he saw a sea of clouds as dark as ash. They were smooth, and looked almost like stone, which was odd. He couldn't see anything beneath them. He quickly lost interest, and looked to the side. Naruto was standing a few yards away, gazing not down, but across, towards the sunset. There was a funny look on his face.

From the books Sai had read on facial expressions, he guessed it might be rapture.

He walked over, stopping beside the boy and then following his gaze into the horizon. They stood there a moment, neither speaking, until Sai remarked, "Is it really that rapturous?"

Naruto broke his gaze, and turned to the side, frowning. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"That look on your face. It was…rapture? Why do you look at such a common scene with that look?"

"It's not common," Naruto muttered. "And I just like flying. The sunset's only half of it."

Sai stared at him, head cocked. "Ah. I see." He turned back to the sunset, and silence fell again.

"You're a very strange boy," Sai said.

Naruto snorted. "Coming from the guy with the weird-ass smile on his face all the time."

Sai turned to Naruto with that painted smile. "Oh, what's wrong with it? I'm told that's what teammates are supposed to do—smile at each other."

Naruto didn't look at the boy directly. He scowled. "Not with a smile like that, moron. It's creepy, and I don't like it." He glared at the boy. "It's like you've never smiled before, or something."

"I haven't," Sai said, still smiling.

Naruto stared. "Huh?"

"Smiled. I haven't learned how until just recently. I learned it from a book; I spent a long time practicing the smile they had in the book." He cocked his head to the side. "I'm told it's a good likeness."

Naruto stared at the boy, frowning deeply. "What the hell are you talking about?" he snapped.

"How should I say this?" Sai said, with false wistfulness. "I have no emotions. I am incapable of feeling them." His lips curved again. "Why are you looking at me like that? Is it so strange?"

Naruto scowled deeply at the boy. "Are you nuts? Of course it's strange. Everybody has emotions. What the hell is wrong with you?" He turned away. "How the hell can Yamato-san expect me to get along with you?"

"Because he's watching me," said Sai, smiling. "He is suspicious, and so he requested the Hokage place me on your team."

"What?" Naruto turned back to Sai, who was smiling again.

"The Hokage is suspicious of my leader, Danzou-sama; she suspects he is a traitor. So she put Yamato-taichou as someone to look after me. He met me before, and tried to make a show of being interested in my development. You see, I am part of a small ANBU special forces team, called ROOT. He, I believe, was trying to play the role of the caring senpai." Sai gave a very false laugh. "Is that not strange? I don't believe he knows that I know the true reason. He thinks that I, along with the other members of ROOT, are planning a betrayal of Konoha." Sai shrugged. "I don't know what he is talking about."

"Why are you saying this to me?"

Sai laughed. "Because teammates should trust each other, right?"

Naruto stared at the boy for a moment in surprise, which the returned to familiar annoyance. He huffed and turned away. Sai did not.

"I think it's obvious that you do not like me, hmmm?" he said.

Naruto scowled at him. "Geez, what gave you that idea?"

"You never smile at me, and you always seem short-tempered when I am around. I believe those, along with your raised voice and harsh tone when speaking to me, are signs of dislike. You narrow your eyes when you look at me, and adopt a 'scowl' or a 'frown' when you do. You call me insulting names such as 'moron' and 'weirdo'. Is that enough?"

Naruto snorted again. "You learn that from a book too?"

"Yes."

"Hmph."

Sai looked at Naruto a while longer. His smile returned, and he cocked his head to the side, leaning forwards.

"Is it because I am not Uchiha Sasuke?"

At first, Naruto did not react. He stared forwards for a few more moments, drinking in the last few moments of the sunset. Then he looked at Sai with such a look of raw, pure hatred that the boy leaned away, as if afraid of being burnt.

"What did you say?"

Sai smiled again. "I have heard a lot about him. He was once your teammate, wasn't he? Until he ran away, and joined Orochimaru's village of the Hidden Sound… Otogakure. It seems you have a long battle with him beforehand, in which you lost." He opened his eyes slightly from his smile. "Is that not right?"

Naruto glared at the boy. "Shut up, moron. You don't know anything." His anger subsided slightly, and he roughly turned away.

"I know quite a bit about it. Though what I don't understand is why he did not kill you."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Probably not," said Sai. "But you seem angry again. Is it because you feel angered that he defeated you?"

Naruto turned to look at him slightly. There was no anger is his eyes now, or at least that's what Sai thought. But his eyes were much different from before. Sai didn't understand what he was looking at.

"No. It's because that bastard abandoned something good that he had for something completely pointless. And I'm going to prove to him how stupid he was in doing that, when I go to the Hidden Sound and drag his sorry ass back to Konoha, like I promised I would." He straightened his back, and continued to stare at Sai coldly. "Somebody like you could never understand that."

"But is he not a missing-nin, now? Your enemy?"

"Shut up. He's not an enemy—he's one of the closest things I've had to a brother. He's one of the only people who's ever been able to understand me." Naruto then glanced away again, leaning back onto the railing.

Sai watched him for a while.

"Interesting. But I find one thing very strange, and possibly contradictory in your words."

Naruto glanced back at him. "Oh?"

"Yes. While you are here, doing all of this, and completing missions for another world, why are you not doing what you have promised? Do you not believe you are strong enough to defeat him?"

Naruto grit his teeth. His eyes blazed. "Shut up. I'm stronger than that bastard; I know it. I'm stronger than you, too."

"Perhaps," said Sai. "You are certainly strong, but neither of us have shown our true strength yet. And you know nothing of Uchiha Sasuke's development, correct? How can you know you are stronger than him? And if you are not—then how can you expect to bring him back?"

"Why the hell are you asking me this?" Naruto snarled.

"I am curious," said Sai. "And are teammates not supposed to know about each other's pasts? I can tell you mine if you like, though there is not much to say. I like drawing and painting, and I once had a brother who is now dead." He smiled. "That's all."

The air was getting colder, as night began to fall. They would be touching down just before dawn, though it would hardly matter what time of day it was where they were going. Naruto turned swiftly away from the black-haired shinobi and began walking in the other direction.

"I don't know how Yamato-san expects me to work with you." He cast a look over his shoulder. "I don't think I could ever get along with someone like you, who wears that smile all the time. I can't trust someone, who doesn't hold anything for their family or friends; those are the people I hate most." He stared back at Sai. "And if you get any of my friends hurt 'cause of that stupid attitude of yours—then I'll kill you myself."

The boy vanished beneath the deck, into the cabin, where he would attempt to get some sleep before dawn arrived. Sai stood standing there for a long time afterwards, his gaze directed towards the dark horizon.

He was not smiling.

* * *

"This is as far as I take yeh," Matthias said. The zeppelin master gave Naruto, Yamato and Sai a bow, his long red coat flowing in the wind. "Naruto knows where to go, so just follow him. Don't forget, though; put on yer masks when ye get to the Plagueland borders. Can't miss it—the Argent Dawn has a little camp there that you'll be able to rest in fer a while. Anything beyond that is the Plaguelands; though you'll know it when you see it."

"Thanks old man," said Naruto, smiling cheekily.

"Shut it brat," grinned the captain, giving a flourishing bow. "I'll beat you in that new game you taught me next time; I'll practice!"

Naruto snickered. "I can't wait! I'll trash you the same as before!"

"You're on!"

Matthias gave them a final wave before returning to the zeppelin, which rose up and into the pitch-black and venom-green clouds above. Though used to the sight, Naruto felt a stab of loneliness when Matthias was gone. He shook his head of it, and turned around, frowning.

"I think we go straight," he said.

"You think?" Yamato asked, calmly.

"Yeah," Naruto said. "We're by the shore, and there should be a small road somewhere in that forest ahead of us," he pointed for emphasis. Ahead of them lay a towering forest of dark green pines, that looked particularly gnarled and nasty. Behind them was the shore, which led into waters so dark that they appeared black. The grass was a strange color—almost blue in sheen, and was short and rough. The smell in the air, evident to all of them, was of decay; Yamato wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"They live around here?"

"Yeah," Naruto said. "Wait until you see where they live proper. It's creepy." Naruto looked about again. "Yeah, forwards. I'm sure of it. I can almost smell the Undercity."

"Undercity…" said Yamato. "Where they live?"

"Yeah. Cool name, huh?"

Yamato sighed. "Yeah." He paused. "What game did you teach Matthias-san?"

Naruto snickered. "_Shiritori. _I'm bad at it, but he's even worse! And I don't think he'll get better, either."

"Nor do I," said Yamato, rolling his eyes. He glanced at Sai. "Ready?"

The boy nodded, and smiled.

They began to walk, starting out at a normal pace as normal humans might, and then progressing into a jog, and then a run. When they reached the trees, they leapt into the canopy, leaping from tree to tree, only disturbing them for a moment. They found the road Naruto spoke of only a short while later; it wasn't much of a road, however, and seemed little more than a small pathway where no trees had taken root. The air inside the wood was damp and smelled of mildew and rot. The ground, when they touched it, was sodden and they kicked up pieces of it when they lifted off again.

Naruto led them along this path for a little under an hour. They spoke little during that time, for they had nothing much to say. Yamato noticed the slight tension between Naruto and Sai, noting that it was different from normal. He'd have to ask Naruto about it later.

Finally they left the trees, entering a dark field. The road led in two directions at this point, one down a hill, where the smell of smoke and sounds of civilization came from, and another led around towards another hill, which obscured further view of the area. Naruto stood in thought a moment, nodded, and then took the latter path. They moved slower this time, Yamato coming to the front, Naruto the middle and Sai lingering in back. They scaled the hill, getting a view of the area. Yamato's eyes widened at the scene before him.

To his right was a small town spread out in the confines of a little valley, surrounded by the hills and the dark forest they had just arrived from. It was clearly inhabited—for there was a smell of roasting food and charcoal, and Yamato could see many figures moving; yet it seemed a ruin as well. The houses were in varying states of disrepair, some with holes in the roofs, others with no roofs at all. Some had no chimneys, yet smoke still wafted out from them, through the holes. There were a few completely intact houses—the largest one of them looked quite new, though that was most likely due to the decay around it.

To his left was an even more impressive sight. It was the gates of a gargantuan castle, or what remained of one. The gates were smashed and old, and the stonework looked ruined. The broken parts and scorch-marks lingered from some long ago battle; it was a monument of defeat. But rather than appearing melancholy, it gave off an awful presence, as if it was not as truly dead as one might first think. And sounds came from it; distant, yet sounds nonetheless. He could not say what sounds they were; but any sound in such a ruin was cause for alarm. He glanced at Naruto.

"Is that it? The Undercity?"

The blonde nodded. "Yeah." Rather than looking distressed, he appeared cheerful. "Let's go! They're probably waiting for us!"

"How do you know?"

"Sylvanas-baba is like that. She's kind of like Tsunade-baba only a lot more paranoid; so she'll probably have whomever's traveling with us come outside. So all we gotta do is go in the main entrance and wait." He nodded to himself.

"What is that town behind us?" asked Sai.

"Brill," said Naruto. "I've been there once, and it's nicer than it looks, you know."

"Why are the buildings like that?"

"They don't like change. 'Sides, they don't need to worry about rain or heat in this place. The clouds are always like that, and don't hold moisture or something like that. The people we're going to meet'll probably explain that to us." He pointed. "So let's go!"

Yamato nodded once, and they took off down the hill. Yamato already knew that he did not like this place. It didn't feel right.

It didn't take them long to reach the front doors of the castle. Naruto led the way through a small passageway and into a massive courtyard, as ruined as the outside appearance. A destroyed fountain sat in the middle, its statue in pieces around it, no water flowing through it. On either side of the courtyard were stairs that led into other parts of the city, which lay behind closed stone doors, flanked by statues of armored kings of Lordaeron. At the end of the courtyard was a drawbridge that led towards a pair of larger stone doors marked with complicated symbols and barred by debris.

Oddly the place had no smell. It did not smell of mildew, rot, and other forest scents, as outside. The smell simply vanished when they crossed the threshold of the gate. But the air was colder, and the strange sounds of activity had grown louder. Yamato knew they were coming from below him, but it sounded all around.

Then another, nearer sound drew his attention—a door creaking open, across the courtyard, one of the wooden doors adjacent to the massive stone ones.

"Oi!" Naruto suddenly called out beside him. "What the heck are you doing here?"

"_Is that any way, brat, to talk to a queen?"_

The words were hardly shouted. They floated across the courtyard and sounded in Yamato's ears as if the woman was standing right next to him. He tensed, and watched one of the most beautiful and frightening women he had laid eyes on walk towards him, flanked by two figures, and followed by one more. These figures were draped in black, their bodies completely obscured.

"_You haven't changed, brat," _Sylvanas Windrunner said. "_And you've brought new friends." _Her eyes went to Yamato. "_A forest-frolicker," _then to Sai, "_and…someone interesting."_

Yamato stepped forwards, one eyebrow raised. "I am Yamato, leader of this team. You must be…Sylvanas-sama." He gave a polite bow. "It is a pleasure."

"_For one of us, I'm sure," _she said. "_I don't like your eyes, boy. The eyes of the ignorant offend me." _

"I don't understand," said Yamato. "But forgive me if I've offended you." He bowed again. An unfriendly smile crossed Sylvanas' face.

Naruto stepped forward. "Did you get Kira-chan's letter?"

"_Yes. Has your world decided to involve themselves in the petty politics of this one?"_

"Yeah," said Naruto. "But fat lot you know about that, baa-chan; you haven't done anything since Stormwind was destroyed. I thought you were a part of this alliance."

"_You know above all that I prefer to keep to myself. You are still so young, boy. And I have had many things to do; things that in the long-run you will thank me for. Let's move on. I'd like to keep this meeting short."_ She smiled at Naruto's disgruntled glare.

"I assume you're here to introduce our companions, then?" said Yamato.

"_Yes. But there is only one introduction to do, now isn't there?" _She smiled coldly at one of the cloaked figures. "_There is no need to hide yourselves any more, Fenritt, Myrdraxxis. You are known well enough."_

One of them immediately pulled off the hood. Yamato stepped back in that instant, his eyes going wide when he saw the face of a corpse, not a man. It had sunken black sockets for eyes, pale grey flesh all over a skeletal-thin face, no lips and a mouth that seemed perpetually to smile. Only Naruto's shout stayed his hand.

"Fen! Myrdraxxis! It's you guys?"

"And how, brother," said the one who had revealed his face. "Good to see you again! You've brought friends, eh? Hope I didn't scare them."

Naruto glanced at Yamato. "Course you didn't. I told Yamato-taichou about you guys before we came. I kind of thought you'd be our guides!"

"We were specially selected for it," grinned Fen. "We get along with you the best, I suppose. Right Myr'?"

The figure to Sylvanas' right, who remained cloaked, said nothing.

"He's just shy," said Fen, with something of a smirk.

Myrdraxxis snorted. "Shut up," he said.

"Which one of you is the medic, then?" asked Yamato, glancing from Fen to the shadowed one, Myrdraxxis.

"_Neither,"_ said Sylvanas, stepping to the side, her ivory eyes glinting in delight. "_Hisari, would you introduce yourself to our guests?"_

She did more than just that. The figure gave a soft, feminine laugh, and suddenly bolted forwards with incredible speed. From his cloak shot a long, gleaming sword, curved and tinted red. He thrust it out, aiming it straight for Naruto's heart.

Naruto reacted an instant before being struck. He ran forth and clapped his hands around the flat of the oncoming blade and flipped over it and his attacker. He drew his sword as he did, twisted in mid-air, and landed behind the figure, drawing his sword across its neck and grabbing the figure roughly around the chest, pulling it towards him. He dug his feet into the ground, and attempted to lift the attacker off his feet when he noticed something very odd.

There was something soft, with a touch of firmness, about as big as a grapefruit in his hand. He inspected it further for a few seconds frowning and forgetting for a moment where he was. His opponent too has stopped, and had even lowered her sword.

Naruto swallowed. "You're a girl…aren't you?"

His attacker looked back at him. He saw a flash of deep emerald eyes and a beautiful face, twisted into a look of pure anger and revulsion.

"_Yes._"

"Crap."

"_Let go."_

"Yes ma'm."

Naruto immediately pulled back, holding his hands as far from his own body as possible. The girl turned, shrugging off her cloak. Beneath it was an extraordinarily beautiful figure dressed in blood-red plate and chain mail, which scarcely covered her chest. Her head was perfectly shaped, with a narrow, feminine jaw, long, pointed ears, perfect platinum hair, and glowing green eyes.

"_This," _said Sylvanas, smirking, "_is Hisari Sunfire, Blood-Knight of the Sin'dorei, in your tongue the Blood Elves, of Silvermoon City. She will be your 'medic' for this mission."_

Yamato glanced at her. "A pleasure, then."

"_I'm sure," _the girl said, beautiful lips distorted by a scowl. Yamato sighed.

"She's cute, but a handful," muttered Fen. "Believe me, I know."

"_Be quite, peon,"_ Hisari said.

"Yes ma'm."

"Why is she here?" Naruto asked.

"_She is one of the many Quel'dorei who will be joining me here in the future; she will soon become part of your alliance, as well, brat. I intend to introduce their leader to the little princess when we meet in a few days."_

Naruto's eyes widened. "Really…? How come we've never heard of them before?"

"_They have fallen on desperate times, recently. They need the power of this little party to resolve a few of them."_

Yamato glanced from the beautiful "Quel'dorei" back to Sylvanas. "Is there anything else, before we leave?"

"_Only that I wish you luck in exterminating those nasty little ants. It will be a long time coming, I think. Brat; this is perhaps time to make full use of the power I gave you last time. It will be far more effective than this one's trees."_

Naruto nodded with a frown. "Sure."

"_Then there is nothing else to say. I have important business to attend to."_

Sylvanas then strode towards them, and past. She stopped by Sai for a second, and whispered something in his ear. The boy's face showed nothing. She then continued to walk, up one of the staircases to the side of the courtyard, towards one of the stone doors. It began to open as soon as she arrived, parting enough to let her through, and then closing. The courtyard was veiled in perfect silence for a few moments after her departure.

Yamato glanced at Naruto. The blonde turned to meet it, then shrank back when he saw the monstrous intensity of every negative emotion the young man could muster into a single look.

"Don't do that to me again."

Naruto shivered, nodding and backing away. Sai smiled and chuckled at the reaction, which drew Fen's look to him.

"What'd Lady Sylvanas say to you?"

The boy smiled. "That's…a secret!"

Yamato sighed deeply, and then glanced at everyone. "Very well. Then let's go, as quickly as we can. I'd like to get to this place, Stratholme, now." He looked at Hisari. "And as we travel, I'd like a good explanation of your abilities. I also want your complete cooperation. If that's not possible, than say it right now."

"_It is possible,"_ said Hisari. "_But only just. I dislike humans as much I dislike men. It is unfortunate that you three seem to have both qualities. But I will cooperate, as I have been ordered to. Shall we go, then?"_ She walked past them, her hips swaying, her smile as twisted as Sylvanas'. Yamato frowned after her.

He did not like this one bit. He exchanged glances with Naruto, seeing total agreement in the boy's eyes.

But they followed the girl out of the castle, and north. Towards lands darker than any of their imaginations could conceive of.

The Plaguelands.

* * *

Sakura awoke panting. White-hot pain burst through her arm as soon as she tried to sit up, but she did not cry out. Sweat poured down her face and body, making her shirt stick to her chest, and her mind feel fuzzy. She had been dreaming awful dreams, ones that though she barely recalled, lingered in her heart, opening an age-old wound that she had chosen to ignore for some time.

"_How could you Sakura? Forget me? Focus all of your attention on that miserable weakling, Naruto?"_

She shook her head violently at the unbidden words. Sasuke's voice had come to her so suddenly that she felt sick. So had his face, which was both similar and different from what she had remembered it to be; she had seen him as he once had been, with his sullen, sunken eyes that burned crimson at times; and then she had seen him completely new, older, yet indistinct and hazy in form, except for his eyes. They remained that awful, burning, bloody, scarlet with three small _tomoe_ circling the pitch-dark pupil.

The _Sharingan_.

She whipped her forehead, and glanced around. The room was empty, a guest-room that Kira had prepared next to Kylia's. It was cozy and well-furnished, and some servant or another continually stocked the fire so Sakura didn't have to.

Sasuke's words terrified Sakura, and hurt her too. But she knew in some way that it was true. She had, in some way, been trying to deliberately forget Sasuke. The mere mention of the name had once sent her mood spiraling downwards, but through time and distraction she had dulled it to its mention produced a minor ache. She had gotten sick of the pain that his name had brought, so she had tried, perhaps not to forget it, but push it away; bury it deep within her for a later time. She had done it more, perhaps unconsciously, since Naruto had returned, as he had mentioned Sasuke little.

She clutched at her face with her good hand, trying to stop tears from forming. She beat her leg in anger and frustration, all at herself. She was cruel. She was disgusted with herself. And she did not know why she had continued to do it. She felt then a sense of urgency. She would not sleep much the rest of the night, clinging to this deep worry that any second Orochimaru might steal Sasuke's body and prevent him from ever returning to them, or her. So when dawn arrived, rather suddenly, she was still awake, and could do nothing but slip out of her bed. She showered quickly, and then dressed and made her way down to the Great Hall, where she would be dining with Benedictus, Kylia and Kira, as she had for the past few days.

They were already there when she arrived, but had not started eating. It was a custom, she supposed, as she was usually the last one to arrive. She took her seat beside Kylia, who greeted her with a smile. She smiled back, said good morning, and helped herself to the breads, meat, eggs and rice (which had been added by Benedictus, perhaps to make her feel more at home) and began to eat.

"Your treatment will continue this afternoon," Kira said from the other side of the table. They only sat at one end, for it was a rather large table, meant for banquets and feasts. "How does it feel?"

"Alright," Sakura said. Without the use of anesthetic, which before had been soaked into her bandages, her arm now hurt constantly, but with each treatment, it hurt less. She had already had two. According to Kira, she had at least five more.

"I am curious," said Benedictus. "You are also a healer, are you not? What is your area of talent in it?"

"Healing _jutsu, _poisons and antidotes, slight anatomical corrections, I suppose," said Sakura. "Tsunade-shishou taught me ways to heal with the littlest influence possible, such as pressure points, or ways to let the body heal without extensive healing. Medical _jutsu_ can't solve everything."

"Too true," Kira said, with a nod.

Though she might have been hearing things, Sakura did not like her tone. "But potions have their limits as well, and they have greater side-effects. Unfortunately my master knows only a little about proper potions. I understand the theory very well, and given instructions can produce any sort of medicine that is needed."

"Yet you focus mostly on antidotes?" asked Kira.

"Those are the most common injuries treated by shinobi, as poison is a very common weapon. There's rarely a need to counter any other sort of affliction that cannot be healed by time or _jutsu_."

"I see."

Sakura frowned at the girl. Kira continued to eat normally, not looking the pink-haired shinobi in the eye. Benedictus watched them both.

"How much of the city have you seen, miss Sakura?" he asked.

"Mostly the places Naruto has been," she said. "That's the main street, the graveyard, and some of the outskirts. I've been trying to find him a ramen shop that rivals Ichiraku's, or at least is as friendly and personal. I don't think I will, though; it seems that miss Eliza and her father were the only ones that could."

"So he told you of them?"

"Yeah. I'm glad he continues to visit them, but I think he needs to let go. He'll end up like our teacher, Kakashi-sensei."

"Why?" asked Kira, looking up again. "He can pay his respects as often as he likes."

"Of course. But he doesn't have to stare at their graves for hours. Paying his respects can be just thinking of them. Besides, Naruto's at his happiest when he eats ramen." She recalled every time she had seem him eat. She smiled at the thought.

Kira nodded. She returned to her food. The rest of the meal passed in relative silence.

When the meal was over, they each went their separate ways. Kira went to find Sir Eric to get the day's reports. Kylia went on Kira's orders to the infirmary to begin the preparations of Sakura's potion. Benedictus went to the Cathedral, to do whatever an Archbishop did. Sakura went to wander, and think. This time she didn't go on her hunt for a ramen shop. Instead she simply ambled the streets in thought. The urgency of last night had died a little, but it remained constantly in her mind.

They had to save Sasuke. They had to do it soon. Why were they in this place, anyways? What were they doing here, instead of looking for signs of Orochimaru and Sasuke? Another question nagged her as well, though it was out of place: why did she argue, however subtly, so constantly with Kira?

The girl had done nothing wrong. She had, overall, been very nice to Sakura. Yet, they differed in opinion on many issues, and most strangely, all of them seemed to concern Naruto in some way. She was reminded of Ino and the constant bickering. Except Kira was a real princess, rather than one who thought she was. But of course they differed on many other things as well, the majority of them relating to medical knowledge. This was bound to happen, as both had such extensive and differing training in the matter.

But what Sakura disliked the most was that Kira seemed to think that Naruto would always be there.

It was not a bad thing to hope that. Sakura had once relied almost solely on her teammates and teacher to handle things. She had learned later to handle herself better, and though she relied on Naruto when he was there, she did not hope for it. That would be foolish. Kira continually said: "Naruto did this…" and "Naruto will do this…". It was like she relied on him, and only him. She did not mention this to the girl, but she thought that Kira needed to learn a valuable lesson concerning this. Naruto would not always be there. In the distant future, he probably never would. This was not his world. Konoha was, and always would be.

She went for her treatment a little after noon. This time she stayed silent during it. Kira would remove the bandages and after a bit of prodding, would apply a purplish salve to the wounded area, which would cause her arm to scream in pain for a few minutes, and then calm itself. The overall pain would be decreased, and she would be able to move her arm a little bit better. Kira was silent as well, and made no offer to say anything to the girl, save what was needed. Sakura found that when she didn't speak, she was a lot more agreeable. She was likeable, even. She was a very pretty girl, as well, something that continually reminded Sakura, especially concerning the size of Kira's chest. Though roughly the same age, Kira was at least a bra size bigger than Sakura.

'_That's probably it,' _she thought as she left, having spoken only a word or two to Kira. '_She's got bigger breasts than me. It's just jealousy."_

She continued to dwell the rest of the day on those thoughts. She suddenly wanted more than anything for Naruto to come back. She wished she could be there with him, so that she could help him end his mission that much quicker. They couldn't stall any longer than they already had.

They had to get Sasuke back. She…they just couldn't lose him.

* * *

They arrived at the Argent Dawn outpost a mid-afternoon, though it was hard to tell. It remained as dark as it had that morning. The outpost was very small, composed of about twelve medium-sized tents that lay to the left of the large road that traveled between two large, rocky hills. Ditches had been dug near the road closest to the hills, which were filled with rows of deadly pikes. Four scorpion siege weapons rested behind these, pointed slightly up, so that the pikes did not hinder the deadly projectiles they threw.

Hisari strode boldly between the pikes, as four men dressed in grey and black tabards hurried to the front, barring their path. All of them wore large helms that kept their faces hidden. They did not draw their weapons and instead shouted for them to halt.

Hisari stared at them, looking disgusted. "_Out of my way, humans. This is not a time to anger me."_

One of them stepped forth. "What is she doing here…? And with such…" he looked back at the others, "…strange company? What is your purpose here?"

"_Is it not obvious?"_

Yamato walked forward, past Hisari (at whom he shot a look of contained fury) and up to the man. "Forgive her. I have interrogated her for the last few hours about her abilities. She does not like men, and least of all human men, so you can see how this would rile her up. My name is Yamato. We are here on orders from Kira-hime of Stormwind."

The soldier stood silent a moment, and then nodded. "I see. What orders might have brought you here?"

"Those are not for you to know."

Another of the men stepped forward, clearly angry. "Answer his question."

"I do not have to," said Yamato.

"You are about to travel into an extremely deadly environment," said the first man, ignoring the second. "You are human. If it were just the elf and the Forsaken behind you, then it would be a different situation. The Plaguelands themselves claim more lives than its denizens, so you must understand. These orders must be of the utmost urgency for you to warrant entering that place."

"They are. However, we need a bit of rest, and during that time, I can give you as much information as I can warrant. Naruto, didn't you say you knew somebody here?"

Naruto nodded. "I think so; if she stayed, at least. She might have gone back to Stormwind with the others." He approached the first man. "Oi, _ossan_, do you know have anybody working under you named Maya?"

The man glanced at Naruto. "Yes, we do. Do you know her?" At Naruto's nod, he stepped back, and thought a moment. "Very well. Come with us, and rest a bit. I'll locate Maya." He glanced at Hisari, Myrdraxxis and Fen. "Will they be coming?"

"_No,"_ said Hisari.

"We will," said Fen, gesturing between him and Myrdraxxis. "Just a minute." He turned and went to Hisari, muttering something to her that no one else could hear. Her face did not change, and she merely snorted.

"Who is she, anyways?" Naruto muttered to Fen, as they walked away.

Fen sighed. "It's a bit of story, so I'll tell you later. There's a reason they call her kind the _Blood elf_ after all."

* * *

"…Are you?"

Kabuto tilted his head to the side. "Sasori-sama?"

"When did you feel my _jutsu_ release? Do you remember who you are?"

"Yes," said Kabuto, slowly. He regarded the black-cloaked form of his master. "I remembered just a few hours ago. I came immediately, as I remembered the meeting we would be having."

Sasori tilted his head to the side. "You don't seem surprised."

"By what, Sasori-sama?"

"My appearance."

Kabuto knitted his brows in confusion. "I don't understand? Is that not another puppet form?"

"Perhaps. But perhaps it is my true form. I have always used Hiruko in our meetings. Don't you remember?"

"O-of course," said Kabuto, frowning even more now. "Do you not believe me, master?"

"Where is Orochimaru?"

"In our most recent base," said Kabuto, pushing his glasses up. "We change bases every few weeks; we have them situated all over the Sound, Rice, and Tea Countries."

"And Uchiha Sasuke is there as well?"

"Yes. His training is going well; he is becoming as strong as Orochimaru, perhaps even stronger."

"I see."

There was a sudden breeze, which ruffled Sasori and Kabuto's cloaks, and made Sasori's bell tinkle. There was silence for a moment, complete silence, as if the creatures and sounds of the forest were listening in rapt attention to them. Kabuto drew his cloak tighter around him, waiting for Sasori to speak.

"I'm curious," the puppeteer then said.

"About what…Sasori-sama?"

"About how you can possibly conceive of me being so stupid."

Kabuto took a back-step. "W-what?"

Sasori's glossy eyes shined from beneath the straw hat. "I created the _jutsu _that controlled you, and made you forget. I know everything about it. What I don't know is how you thought you could one-up me by planning an ambush during this meeting. Did it not cross your mind, you fool, that I could sense when my _jutsu_ was cut? I didn't bother releasing it, because I couldn't. The strings had been severed. Now where is Orochimaru?"

Another breeze tinkled the bell.

There was a hollow thud as steel struck _chakra_-soaked wood and pierced straight through. Sasori went still, his glossy eyes during down to see the sword, erupted from the sternum, soaked in blood.

"_Here_."

Orochimaru's golden, snake-like eyes bored into Sasori's back. He clutched the hilt of a deadly straight sword. His tongue fell from his mouth as he sneered hideously at Sasori, his face half-obscured by his greasy black hair. "Hello, Sasori."

Sasori's body shuddered a bit. "Orochimaru."

"So you knew, then? I am not surprised. You were always that clever. But then why did you come? Were you ordered to assassinate me?"

"Perhaps," said Sasori. "Perhaps not. Whatever the case, would I really tell you?"

Orochimaru's eyes glinted demonically. "I suppose not." He pushed the sword in deeper. "This is the first time I have seen blood come from you, Sasori. Could this really be your true body?"

"You were my partner for many years, Orochimaru," Sasori's suddenly head spun around, facing the man directly. His eyes were wide, and there was even the barest trace of a smile on his face. Orochimaru recoiled.

"Surely you should know better."

Sasori's face suddenly melted away. What replaced it was a featureless white doll, in the shape of a human, dressed in a black cloak and hat. Orochimaru roared in fury, ripping his sword from the clay doll and leaping away as the figure swelled and the exploded. The middle of the bridge shattered in a blast of heat and force, and the rest collapsed, unable to bear its own weight. Orochimaru was flung backwards with exceeding force, smashing through a large oak tree at the edge of the forest, and crashing into the ground. Kabuto was launched in the opposite direction and landed roughly on the ground, spitting blood and gasping.

Orochimaru flipped over onto his stomach, and got up. He hissed in fury and pain, as the entirety of his back was now burned and ruined. He still gripped his sword, _Kusanagi_, tightly. He looked about him.

"Clever, Sasori. Was that your new partner?"

"No," a voice whispered to Orochimaru's right. "My former partner. He should be dealing with the traitor at this point, along with my new one. They are both fools."

Kabuto stood shakily to his feet. He was burned as well, but not nearly so badly. But his ribs were cracked and he had likely injured his lungs. He began to concentrate _chakra_ into the affected areas, feeling the pain ebb. At the same time he listened, and waited.

"I can hear you," he said softly. With the barest visible movement he drew a _kunai _and flung it upwards to his left. It struck a tree, and the explosive note attached ignited, and burst apart, sending a figure robed in black streaking from the canopy of the forest to the earth before Kabuto. The figure wore a straw hat that obscured his face, and the black cloak of the Akatsuki.

Kabuto smirked coldly, and drew another _kunai_. The figure didn't react, instead scoffing and complaining loudly: "Sonofabitch…didn't feel a goddamn thing…yeah."

Orochimaru hissed, and suddenly became limp. His skin became sunken and baggy, and appeared to fall from his bones like melting clay. There was a hideous ripping sound, as a pair of arms tore through Orochimaru's chest, ripping away the excess skin. A head and clothed body followed, and Orochimaru became whole once more, completely uninjured. He kicked the shed snakeskin to the side, turning to face his opponent. "You look the same, Sasori."

"How would you know?"

"As you said, we were partners. Surely you should know better?" The snake-like man sneered coldly. "How have you been?"

"Bored. I had some fun a few weeks back, but it didn't last long."

Orochimaru chuckled. "How is my old affiliation, then? You seem a bit closer to your goal, from what recent news dictates."

"Yes. And you seem as far from yours as can be. Ready to give up yet?"

Orochimaru laughed. "Never."

Sasori stepped forwards. "Then I'll play a bit with my old partner. It might be fun."

Orochimaru lunged. _Kusanagi_ tore through a centimeter of black cloth as Sasori dodged to the side, flinging out a hand. There was a bright flash and a stream of white-hot flames erupted from the center of Sasori's hand. Orochimaru fell to the ground on all fours to avoid it, whipping his head up and spitting a long, stream of disgusting, poisonous green liquid.

'_Hitokuisan no jutsu!''_

The lethal vomit gushed in a wide arc, but Sasori dodged it with nimble steps, lashing out with his other hand this time. But instead of flames came a series of flickers, made only visible by the shining moon above. Orochimaru leapt to the side, but was not fast enough; for his arm was suddenly caught within a small net of gleaming wires, and with the force of his leap, the wires, deadly sharp, bit through flesh, muscle and bone. Orochimaru howled, twisting himself momentarily free as his entire left arm was minced in a cloud of dark, hideous blood. But he was stopped once again—Sasori's wires were now wrapped around his entire body, freezing him in time, in which he glared at Sasori with the force of a basilisk.

But a moment before Sasori could end his former-partner's life, Orochimaru's body—blood and all, became dark and sludgy, becoming nothing more than a half-formed pile of mud. Sasori was alone for a moment; but he knew that Orochimaru had not fled.

'_Katon: Karyuu Endan!'_

Sasori was suddenly blanketed by a swift, meteoric column of flames, created by a laughing Orochimaru from above. He stood at the highest branch of one tree, gazing down in merciless joy upon the hellish lake he had created. It did not matter to him that Sasori would undoubtedly survive.

"Sasori!" he called.

There was silence.

"Sasori! I have a proposition!"

"What is it?"

Orochimaru did not jump when Sasori's bored voice drifted suddenly from behind. "Join me. Become a member of the Hidden Sound. Or at least betray those fools you work with now. What good are they to you?"

"They provide me with many additions to my collection," the puppeteer said, perched on the branch behind Orochimaru.

"Something that I can easily offer you as well, and more," Orochimaru said. "What allegiance might you hold to them, anyways? Your power is great, so why join with others; with your personality I thought you'd see it differently."

"Can it possibly be something else? Perhaps, as I suspected, you haven't discovered how to use it, have you?"

Orochimaru stiffened.

"I was right then," Sasori said. Though his opponent could not see it, there began the barest hint of a smile on his face. "You haven't learned how to use it then? With all your power and genius, you still have failed to recreate the _jutsu_ that only our _Okashira_ can do. _'Shidenotabi no jutsu'. _

"The _jutsu _that can take you to the otherworld."

* * *

Kabuto launched the kunai at the cloaked figure. It was easily dodged, as he expected, but it allowed him time to retreat. He dove into the dark forest, making hand seals as he went. A second later he vanished in a puff of smoke, reappearing atop a tree overlooking his fighting area. He immediately spotted his attacker, near the edge of the forest, in the very same spot. He had not moved since, and that gave Kabuto an opportunity to look at him.

The man had blonde hair, tied in a topknot. His skin was smooth and flawless and extremely pale. A considerable lock of hair covered one eye, and the other was a glossy, bleeding red. Of the rest of his face, Kabuto could not tell, as it was covered by the high collar of his cloak.

He drew a _kunai_ with expert deftness and attached another explosive seal to it. An attack from such a distance would certainly not hit, so he'd have to get closer. He bounded from his perch and fell soundlessly to the ground, kicking off it as soon as his full weight had landed, propelling him towards his opponent. He made a seal with his hands, and then thrust one out—a tendril of blue erupted, forming into the shape of a five-foot long blade, which encompassed the whole of his hand. He burst from the trees, striking out with this hand.

'_Shosen Yari Jutsu!'_

The _jutsu_ struck his opponent's back, right above the spine. It caused him to jerk forwards, as the _chakra_ traveled straight through his skin and into his organs. Kabuto then threw his _kunai_, so that it struck the man's right shoulder with a deep, wooden sound, far too hollow for human flesh. But he jerked back anyways, and fled as the exploding tag activated, engulfing the man in a cloud of fire.

Kabuto smiled with vicious pleasure, like some demon, of both the conquest and the sight. The smell of liquefied flesh reached his nose, making him shiver. The sound that it had made, however, puzzled him—they were Akatsuki, some of the most dangerous men to have existed—he would not be caught off guard should this man decide to reveal himself as something more than human. It would be expected.

"Fuck…I'm alive…yeah."

The man stepped from the flames, with one hand extended, at the end of which was a gaping mouth, which appeared to be devouring the fire that surrounded him as if it were a delightful snack. The man's eyes blistered with fury, but it did not extend past that; his face was as smooth and cold as carved ice. He glanced at his hand, and his lip curled slightly, marring the sculpture.

Kabuto frowned. It was not surprising, though he did feel disappointed. It must have conveyed itself on his features, for the man glanced at Kabuto. "Fuck off," he said. "You're dead."

Kabuto narrowed his eyes. "Oh? Am I?"

"Yeah. I don't even know how to use this body well, and I know that much. But the real problem is that bastard's real partner…yeah."

"What?"

The ground beneath Kabuto exploded. A dark blur shot up, grabbing his ankle as it went; he found himself flipped upside down for a moment, spotting an inverted orange and black face, perhaps a mask, before him, which cried "Yo!" before flinging him ten meters away along the edge of the cliff. He smacked the ground twice, before stopping, and his vision went hazy and his stomach turned.

His glasses cracked.

Deidara stared coldly at the figure, but said nothing. The man, dressed in the same cloak as he, but who wore a mask shaped like an orange whirlpool, tilted slightly to the left of his face.

The figure giggled. "Deidara-senpai! Why didn't you kill him? Sasori-senpai made you a lot better than before, didn't he?"

"Fuck you…yeah," Deidara said. "Kill him, moron."

"Why don't you?" the man asked, in a petulant singsong tone. "Oh, he's getting up!"

Kabuto stood shakily to his feet. He tasted blood in his mouth. But more importantly, he found that his vision was slightly hazy in his right eye. He reached up at felt that no glass remained in the frames, and he realized that he had no extra pair on him. The Akatsuki members stared at him, perhaps waiting for him to attack, perhaps just discussing something—he couldn't tell, for he suddenly couldn't hear anything. He felt calmness descend over him, in that sudden, absolute silence; and he took this time to glance up, towards the moon. But he didn't so much look at the moon as the midnight sky about it.

The darkness was so lovely.

He grinned. Were there any word better, or worse, than insane, it would be used to describe such a grin. His body shook with a silent laughter, but his eyes were completely different than that. The masked figure backed away. Deidara did not. Kabuto reached up and took off his glasses, his mouth moving, but no sound coming out.

His vision turned crimson.

Like blood.

* * *

Orochimaru said nothing.

"I thought as much; you still have the ring, don't you? Or did you dispose of the body that it was on? Either way, it doesn't matter. You will never be able to use the _jutsu_ without the ring. Even if you put on the ring, you know what would happen. So your source of ultimate power is gone, isn't it? You were always the one to travel to that place to learn every trick you could. Isn't that how partly how you devised your own body-transferring _jutsu_? It's amusing that you think I'll betray this organization because you yourself can't cross the veil." His eyes narrowed a little, and the hinted smile became more mocking. "How sad."

'_Mahouhappa!'_

There was a ripple in the air, and Orochimaru's body seemed to explode in a severe blast of bright, white light. Sasori was flung backwards by the sudden burst, disintegrated the trees around him in a wailing crash. Sasori fell to the ground, landing as nimbly as a cat, and Orochimaru pursued with swift, awful vengeance. Sasori looked up to see the snake-man's eyes glittering with a vile, monstrous hatred—so utterly inhuman, and so great that had he been any other man, he would have lost any will to fight. But Sasori was not any other man. He flicked his right hand, sending the razor wires after Orochimaru.

'_Enkoudate no jutsu!'_

Orochimaru spat a stream of fire, which coalesced around him in a protective cocoon. The wires struck this instead, and melted from the intense heat. Orochimaru landed roughly, the fire dying, and thrust out a hand. From his fingers erupted a stream of hissing green snakes, as thick as baseball bats, and long as flagpoles. Sasori jumped back, but the snakes moved quickly and were able to catch hold of his arms, biting deep into his body and then coiling themselves around him. Orochimaru leapt forward in the blink of an eye, his mouth opening wide, dispelling his long, pink tongue. It flew forwards and wrapped itself around Sasori's neck, choking him. The snake-nin's mouth then opened even wider, as a serpent's does to swallow prey, and from it a gleaming sword erupted— _Kusanagi_. The blade pierced Sasori's left cheek, going upwards and erupting from the back of his skull. Orochimaru drove it so far in that his mouth was mere inches from Sasori's waxen flesh.

"Sad?" the snake-nin whispered. "There's nothing sad about it. Without those necessary feelings—hatred, for example—Sasori, you're as much a puppet as those dolls you play with. I just thought I could take the strings that bind you to them, and use you for myself. _You_ are sad, Sasori. I am more a puppeteer than you will ever be."

Orochimaru wrenched his head to the sides, severing the top of Sasori's head. Orochimaru then placed a hand on the man's body and hissed: '_Gaibakuha no jutsu!'_

The snake-nin released his grip and fled. Sasori's body did not fall immediately, standing still and shuddering in its final moments of life. It then blew apart, tearing asunder the forest around it in a ferocious blast of heat and force. The blast expanded in a hemispherical cloud, and the force traveled as far as the cliffs, some of which shattered and crumbled into the river far below. Everything within the cloud vanished into oblivion.

Orochimaru was gone. Kabuto suddenly cocked his head to the side.

"Another time, then." He covered his eyes, and vanished in a swirl of smoke.

Deidara stood, the battle over. He glanced at his right arm, which lay four feet from the rest of his body. He felt no pain, and was unsurprised by the lack of blood. He scoffed. "Like that's not happened before."

"Doesn't that hurt…Deidara-senpai?"

Deidara glanced back at the other Akatsuki member, his replacement, Tobi, who lay on his back near the edge of the forest, having been struck but once by their opponent. His eye narrowed coldly, making Tobi quail beneath it, and fall back into his false slumber. "It was tactics! Tactics!" Tobi cried.

"Shut up, Tobi," another voice said.

Deidara sneered. "You only have two-hundred ninety-nine now, Sasori-_danna_. How many of your toys are you going to use up before you start fighting your own battles?"

A bell tinkled behind him.

"The time may come. And you're wrong, Deidara—I have three-hundred."

Deidara scowled, and then looked at his left hand.

It remained open.

"So you do."

* * *

Done. Again, took a bit longer than normal, but I'm doing my best. Let me know if anything about this chapter was confusing, and I'll clarify. I don't think there is.

Thanks to Frankto for the sweet translations!

See you guys next week!

General Grievous

* * *

My brother:

Now comes the question, with the introduction of Blood Elves, where're the Draenei?

_Noz_

* * *

_**Scroll of Seals:**_

**Shidenotabi no jutsu (**Literally "one's last journey; death; journey to the other world" Technique—I've used the latter definition, and while death is implied, it isn't in this case)- The jutsu which allows the Akatsuki members to traverse the veil between Azeroth and the Shinobi World. Requires the special ring of the Akatsuki.

**Mahouhappa (Arcane Explosion): **Produces blast of force which annilihates anything around the epicenter, or the person who uses the _jutsu_. Very powerful, but consumes enormous amounts of _chakra_.

**Enkoudate no jutsu (Fire Shield Technique): **'Nuff said.

**Hitokuisan no jutsu (Flesh Eating Acid Technique): **Again—'nuff said.

**Shosen Yari Jutsu (Mystical Palm Lance Technique): **Longer version of the _chakra_ scalpel effect of the Mystical Palms technique (Shosen Jutsu)


	12. The Plaguelands

**Disclaimer: Not owning Naruto or World of Warcraft is a tragedy! A travesty! But…for whom? I'll leave you to ponder that question in detail. **

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

-----------------

The Plaguelands were nothing like they had ever seen. They appeared at first a forest, not unlike the dark pines of before, but bereft of needles, and covered in a vile, pulsating fungus; around them were spotted, green and brown mushrooms as big as dinner tables, which twitched and shook their spores at every movement near them. The ground was covered in awful brown grass, which seemed perpetually damp and slick beneath their feet. An awful yellow-brown fog covered every inch of the landscape, making anything not several meters from them invisible. Where the air touched their skin, it was damp and hot, and even through the masks the smell was beyond foul. It made their eyes burn as they walked, and breathing was arduous and distasteful. There was a road through this awful, plagued wood—winding and bent and lined with the same vile mushrooms, which grew perpetually larger as they walked. The terrain was hilly and winding. They passed at one point the edge of a lake, turned black by the Plague, lined with putrid fungi that shuddered with their presence. The animals they saw were few—three squirrels and a deer—which were obviously infected; their bodies were rotten and their movement slow and unnatural. They heard no evidence of birds, but heard other sounds—distant moans and hisses that came from all directions. They were plagued (thankfully not literally) for two nights by these sounds, making sleep difficult for the humans of their group. They avoided two farmsteads in their path, briefly catching sight of them, and seeing masses of movement, as well as putrid red smoke rising from one. Fen told them it was a farm called Dalson's Tears, and that the smoke was synthesized Plague created by the Scourge and placed there to fight against the patrolling Crusaders. The other one was nearest to a bridge that needed to be crossed, which they did quickly and silently, keeping wary eyes on the single building and its barren field.

Beyond the forest was a vast plain, viler than the forest. The trees grew sparse, replaced by gigantic mushrooms, with thick oak-like stalks and expansive heads that rained an almost constant dusting of spores. Thankfully, with no wind, the spores were not spread, and merely settled in large piles at the feet of these disgusting trees. Their smell was overpowering and exhausting. The ground became bare, but retained its softness and slickness. This was called Blight, by Fen—the physical effects of the Plague on the landscape.

But perhaps most distressing was in the distance they saw shambling figures, half covered in the thick fog. The moans grew louder here, and the sight of these figures, never drawing closer but never leaving their sight, was frightening. Fen and Myrdraxxis were used to it, and paid them no mind; Hisari never wavered from their chosen path, her eyes continually forward; Sai seemed the most intrigued, glancing all about him every day, and at night painting pictures of what he had seen; Yamato looked constantly wary, and never smiled; Naruto constantly frowned, and seemed always on edge—the figures bothered him and racked his nerves—he was never one to be calm in such a situation. He contemplated several times seeking out the distant forms and attacking them, but realized it would just cause them problems. Fen explained what they were, though it had been obvious before—victims of the Plague, shambling without purpose, seeking only flesh to consume or brutalize. But their lingering, ceaseless presence was the worst of all, even though it was Naruto who was most affected. He did not like waiting.

They came to a ruined tower at one point, completely deserted, though with evidence that something had been there. The carcasses of animals, buzzing with flies, lay scattered around it, ravaged almost beyond recognition. Beyond that was more forest, where some of the trees were half-formed into mushrooms, sickly and pulsating, and the brown sky grew darker and darker. Their traveling slowed, especially when Fen told them of a town up ahead, which they would need to skirt; called Corrin's Crossing, the town was full to the brim of Scourge and had become a sort of outpost for them. "They're mindless," said Fen, "but they still follow orders. All of them are directly under control of the Lich King, it is said, though the reality is more likely that Kel'Thuzad controls them."

"Who?" Yamato asked.

"A lich—an undead sorcerer—who lives somewhere near Stratholme, responsible for most of the Scourge in this area. We won't be going anywhere near him, hopefully, though at some point he'll have to be dealt with. He's one of the Lich King's generals. But for now I'd like to get to Tyr's Hand. It'll take three more days, by skirting the town."

Fen led them through an expansive forest, where the ground was as littered with bones as it was twigs and fungi. Animal carcasses, fresh and old, lay in savage death every few feet, some completely bone, covered in black and brown mold, others in blood tatters, strewn about over a few feet, and still fresh. "Avoid the flies," Fen told them, "they likely carry Plague as well."

Here the shambling Scourge were not visible, but their presence was continually made known by the moans, and the snapping of bones and twigs—which at night, always brought Naruto out of his light, restless sleep. He never could go back to sleep after that, a trait he unusually shared with Hisari, with whom he would have to share the long nights with. Neither of them spoke to each other, for even though Naruto knew what she was, he could not find himself to like or even sympathize with her. He had learned this in a talk with Fen, when they had stayed briefly in the Bulwark before entering the Plaguelands.

"She's a _Sin'dorei_," he had said. "Or _blood elf_ in your language, the last remnants of a race very closely linked to the night elves, or _Kal'dorei_. It'd take a bit to explain her history in detail, so I'll just tell you the outline, as I know that, like me, you hate history lectures." At Naruto's smile of agreement, he went on. "Basically, when the Well of Eternity blew up, a bunch of the _High Elves_, those who followed Queen Azshara, and who didn't plunge into the deep, and left the night elves, coming over here, and creating a kingdom called Quel'Thalas. They created, though I'm not sure how, something called the Sunwell—which turned out to be a mistake, in the end. The Sunwell provided them with incredible _chakra_ regeneration rates, through some sort of strange energy it radiated. They lived like this for a time, the Sunwell transforming them into pale-skinned beings, like that pretty piece of flesh we have to baby-sit. During the Third War, Prince Arthas, the guy responsible for most of what happened in the Plaguelands, attacked their city and destroyed it, forcing them to flee even further north; most of them died, but some survived and they called themselves the _blood elves_ as a result—to honor their fallen brethren. After that, they started rebuilding, and eventually were able to take back their lands—Quel'Thalas, from the Scourge; that was about ten years ago. I'm told that Lady Sylvie has been in contact with them for some time, but they haven't revealed themselves until now, as they had things to do, like rebuilding, and curbing the Scourge problem they have. Since Lady Sylvie was once a _high elf_, they have a good record with her, and so naturally they'd ally, though it took a bit of time, and still they hardly trust us, due to our affliction. I guarantee that there is going to be an uproar when Sylvanas introduces them."

"Why?" Naruto had asked.

"Well, she's a perfect example—she despises humans, mostly because they propagate the Plague, and she's pretty much intolerant of everyone else, save maybe the orcs. She'll especially disapprove of the night elves, and you can bet they'll despise her and her kind, or at least regard them with enough distrust to make this alliance weaken a bit. The worst part is not that, though; it's their 'disease'." He noted Naruto's puzzled look, and nodded. "It's not a disease, per say. It's an addiction. For thousands of years their kind have been exposed to this Sunwell, which while now destroyed, has not ceased to affect them—their bodies are now infused with this energy, and it appears to be genetic, or else they've found another way of synthesizing it—either way, it has disastrous effects on their psyche."

"So that's like what happened to you guys. Everyone should be able to understand, don't you think?"

"It's a bit like us, but still way different. Our bodies are affected by the Plague, but once we come to ourselves, our original personalities return, though a bit warped by the trauma. But they aren't affected at all in body—it's all in their mind. They _need_ to use this power, and it, as time goes on, slowly distorts their minds, making them boastful, arrogant, and self-absorbed; and they can't help it. This power makes them feel strong, invincible; it's an addiction. It makes them incredibly dangerous as well, for both enemies and allies—it gives them a rush, and so they use it often. They can keep their original personality, but only if their will is strong enough. Otherwise, they become a lot like her. We haven't seen much of what she can do; only that she's pretty skilled, despite being so young. But you can guarantee that you'll have to stay out of her way in a fight. Just don't piss her off, okay? Try and be friends with her, even—you may be able to work the magic you used on Sylvie."

She was pretty, but her awful scowl and maddened green eyes reminded him uncomfortably of Sasuke—which was another problem he found himself constantly afflicted with. When he managed to sink into an uneasy sleep, he found his dreams plagued by images of Sasuke. "_Have you forgotten me?_" or _"Idiot, you'll never bring me back at the rate you're going," _they continually drawled. They would inevitably awake him, and then the evil sounds of the forest would keep him so. He grew sullen and quiet, and only through the efforts of Fen would he be able to smile, and then, only briefly.

But not all was bad. He had enjoyed seeing Maya again, and how she was getting on. She had since become a member of the Argent Dawn, and had found her true reason for joining—to ensure that nothing like what she experienced happened to anyone else. She had elaborated on the difficulty of getting in—the intense training sessions and brutal tests—but in the end, felt glad that she was. She belonged somewhere again. But her cheery face was quite distant now, in the blanket of evil fog that constantly surrounded them.

Yamato observed the change silently. He knew that Naruto was bothered by the situation they were in—for he himself was not much better. This place more than anything terrified him; it was so hostile, yet they had encountering nothing so far that posed them direct threat. It was different from what they had been told at the Bulwark. An officer named Garush—an aged man with plenty of strength left in him, who had fought the Scourge for years, and who knew all about the area.

"What you seek may not even be in Stratholme," he had told them. "There are several Scarlet outposts in the Plaguelands, not including that damned city. The others include Hearthglen, in the northwestern Plaguelands, and Tyr's Hand, in the southeastern. Stratholme is the main headquarters, but far cry from the safest place to keep such an important item. And you're giving them far too little credit—they are zealous, but they aren't stupid. In the arts of war, their leaders rival ours."

"What would be the most likely? It would cost far too much time to check all three."

"Tyr's Hand, I'd say," he had said, stroking the slight grey beard he had. "Untouched by the Plague, and never been conquered once. It's a bastion of their faith, and would be incredibly difficult to enter, especially with the witch there."

"Witch?" Yamato asked.

"Crusader who calls herself The Scarlet Oracle. We don't know much more than that, only that she's incredibly powerful and influential. But she's not the half of it. That place is diseased in its own way. More monstrous acts take place there daily than every country on this continent. They are all mad, except the initiates," he glanced at Maya when he said this. "So I suspect some sort of brainwashing. I've known good men who joined the Crusade. This place has two plagues, I think you'll find. One that decays the flesh, and the other the soul."

He had gone on to describe the general layout of the Plaguelands to Yamato while the others talked. Then after a small meal, they had left with Maya and Garush' wishes of luck and health.

For they were sorely needed. It was not so much the place, either, but the creatures that inhabited it. Though they saw almost nothing of them, the thought that any moment the shadows that lingered just out of their reach could leap out at them and use nothing more than basic savagery to tear them all to pieces was chilling; but the fact that they didn't was even more so.

"Why don't they attack us?" he whispered to Fen, after a day's travel through the forest. They had arrived near the banks of a lake filled with water, clouded black and green by Blight, but stayed a fair distance from it, as according to Fen, it was not uninhabited. "Could we have been discovered?"

"No," rumbled Myrdraxxis, standing at the edge of the wood. "As strong as he is, that lich has no way of locating us, unless someone informed him of our presence. Scourge cannot think, unless they are granted base intelligence, and those that have it are undoubtedly serving a much higher purpose than the ghouls that wander these lands. Elf, why don't you explain?"

Hisari scowled, glancing over at the rogue whose attention remained fixed on the lake. "_I ward them off using a power of mine. Useful, is it not?"_

"I'd rather they just up and attacked us," mumbled Naruto. "It'd be easier to fight them that way, and I wouldn't feel so goddamn creeped out all the time. And why didn't you just say that before?"

"This is a stealth mission," said Yamato, with a sigh. "As irritating as they are, it is good that she has done it. But I agree with Naruto; it would have been better for you to have said something—we are at the moment, a team."

Hisari sniffed. "_I despise you. I cannot call any whom I despise a teammate."_

"What the hell is your problem, anyways?" Naruto snapped. "All you've done since you've been with us is bitch about men and humans. What do you have against us, anyways?"

"_Men are vile," _she said, with narrowed, intensely glowing eyes._ "And humans are wicked, pathetic little beings. The lot of you are like diseased cockroaches that can't be stamped out. You are weak, spiteful and offer nothing redeeming for your faults. What can I like about such things?"_

"Shut up," Naruto said in two distinctive growls. He had launched himself to his feet, standing on the balls of his toes like a wild animal with raised hackles.

"_Biting words are all you can use. Sad, isn't it?"_

"Shut up, how can somebody as stupid and weak as you say anything about that?"

Hisari flashed to her feet, her eyes alive with frightening, frenzied hate. "_How dare yo—"_

"Shut up, both of you," said Yamato, suddenly cold. Naruto quieted, though he still glared at Hisari. Hisari rounded on Yamato, ready to continue her tirade, but Yamato was ignoring her.

"Are we close?"

"About a half a day more," muttered Fen. "There's a Scarlet camp around here, somewhere. We should keep to the trees, and go around the north side of the lake. Once we get to Tyr's Hand, we're gonna need a plan. I've never actually seen more of it than the walls. It's immensely difficult to enter, judging by the fact that no Scourge have been able to break into it since the Plaguelands have existed."

Yamato nodded, "Fine." They quickly left, moving away from the lake. The blighted sky grew darker as they went, a marked change in atmosphere. They then spotted an amazing sight—a massive wall, stretching hundreds of feet into the air, shrouded in the veil of night, which did not continue much past it, as if suffocated by the poison of the plague. The wall shined brightly, as if formed of moonlight, perfect among the rotten forms of the Plaguelands. Even the light of the moon was visible, casting down only on the little plot of land, called Tyr's Hand.

"This is it. Getting past is another story," said Fen.

Naruto craned his neck up. "We could go up using _chakra_. But there're probably guys up top, right?"

"Most definitely," said Yamato, frowning. He turned to look at everyone. "Okay. Here's what is going to happen."

"_Such an commanding tone, human. Do you expect to order me?"_

"Yes," Yamato said, suddenly harsh. "Despite your allegiance, you are a part of my team. While I don't know what orders Sylvanas-sama gave you otherwise, it would be in your best interests to follow what I say, because as it stands, you are not only a hindrance to the success of this mission, but your skills are hardly oriented towards stealth. This is not a mission to destroy the Scarlet Crusade, regardless of what you were told. This is a retrieval mission—we are to enter Tyr's Hand and remove all evidence of that portal-machine. I would like to do it with no casualties on my part, and as few on theirs as possible—I don't want to be seen. For a shinobi team, this is entirely possible; I recognize that you are not shinobi, but I expect you to cooperate, as it is in the best interests of your kind as well." He quickly turned away before Hisari could think of a response, and addressed the others. "Myrdraxxis-san, Naruto tells me your skills lie in stealth."

The rogue nodded.

"Then you'll accompany me and Sai. Naruto, you will remain with Fen-san and Hisari-san at the top of the wall, and offer us aid. Do you still have the ear piece I gave you?"

Naruto nodded, tapping his weapon's pouch. He wasn't happy with the decision, however. "Why can't I go? I'm pretty good at stealth."

"That isn't the issue," said Yamato. "You've been restless for the past few days, and you've got a very short temper at the moment. You don't have the mindset. So you'll stay on the wall, and offer support—I'll alert you guys to whatever is happening, and if we should need aid, I'll tell you. You'll know where to come." He turned his swift brown eyes to everyone else. "Is that clear to everyone?"

"_No,"_ hissed Hisari, having managed to recover herself since Yamato's reprimand, clearly furious at the insult. "_If you—"_ She choked, and began to thrash furiously, as a long, wooden creeper rose from the ground, wrapping around her neck and arms, responding to Yamato's _chakra_. The man was clearly at his patience's end. He walked straight up to the blood elf, staring directly into her shocked and furious eyes.

"I don't care about your prejudices. I don't care if you hate me, either. I just care about this mission succeeding. I do want to have it messed up by your intolerance. Put it aside, and complete this mission, or I will kill you right here. Now, I don't care what happens as a result—but you will perform your function on this mission. Do you understand?"

Hisari snarled, and continued to struggle. Her eyes burned so passionately that it seemed she would not give in. Yamato stared back. Fen watched a little nervously, glancing between the captive blood elf and Yamato.

"Let her go, Yamato-taichou," Naruto muttered. "She's not gonna give in. I'll make sure she doesn't do anything." The boy looked at Yamato rather calmly. "Besides, she can't help it much."

Yamato frowned. He stared back for a moment, wondering what the boy was talking about. He glanced back at Hisari, who still struggled in vain and fury. Her eyes were wide and the veins within them glowed an intense green; her mouth was twisted into a ferocious, ugly snarl; she had not stopped her struggle for a second, like a prisoner driven mad and forgetting the futility of escaping. Had she been able to, she would have certainly attacked him by now.

He walked forwards, grabbed her by the jaw, and then forced something into her open mouth. She tried to spit it out, but he pinched her nose and forced her jaw shut. She struggled for a bit longer, her eyes growing even wider, but was unable to do much else but swallow, which was exceedingly painful. Then he pulled back, and made a hand seal before him.

"I'm going to release you. But before I do, I'll tell you what I just gave to you. It's a seed. At any moment, I could make it grow, inside your stomach, into a plant roughly six times the size of your torso; you would die. I can sense wherever you go with it, and can make it grow from any distance. I promise at the end of this mission, when we depart, hopefully forever, I will destroy it. But until then, this is incentive to cooperate." He took a breath, and the creepers released. Hisari looked for a second like she might still attack, but Yamato did not give way to his position; it'd take but a second for him to gather the _chakra_ necessary to activate the seed; and though jaded by the unnatural energy that flowed through her body, she was not stupid, and he would not lie. Her body quivered with fury, but she did nothing but glare at him.

"Good," Yamato said, relaxing. "We'll start soon. Everyone get a little rest; I'll check out our position." And with that he vanished in swirling, white smoke.

Naruto glanced uneasily at Hisari. The elf neither said nor did anything. Sai, however, broke the silence with a chuckle.

"How strange!" the boy then sat down, taking out a small black book as well as one of his brushes, and a little dish of ink, which he began to paint with, a smile framing his face. The others regarded him, confused, and finally Naruto asked him, gruffly:

"What is?"

"That man," Sai said. "Such a strange person he is. Kind one moment, but brutal the next. Perhaps he is a better shinobi than I expected. He doesn't let his emotions control him."

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the boy, who just continued to paint and smile. "You're the strange one. What I can't figure out is, why the hell are you even here?"

"I told you. Danzou-sama wanted me to go. The Hokage suspects him of treason. How foolish, he has done nothing of the sort. But currently, I am here to help you! You sorely need it, Naruto-san. I may not be Uchiha Sasuke, but I am quite skilled. I shall ensure this mission is a success, so that you might be able to find Sasuke-san that much sooner."

Yamato returned not a moment later, distracting everyone from Naruto's faltered scowl. The man looked pleased, and he addressed everyone once again. "Here's what's going to happen…"

* * *

The plan was executed flawlessly. Yamato could not have planned it better. He and his team defeated eight of the twenty-four odd Crusaders patrolling this side of the wall, and not one managed to even scream. Sai smothered two of them in inky veils, while Myrdraxxis dealt with four more with nothing more than his blades and natural swiftness. Their throats were cut before they managed to utter more than a sound, spilling blood darker than their tunics onto the perfect white stone. Yamato himself eliminate the last two, quickly and soundlessly skewering their hearts with spears of wood; and with that, the three of them leapt from the wall, sailing more than a hundred feet below, into a patch of trees that lay on the outskirts of the town.

Perfect, Yamato thought. He glanced at his companions; the Forsaken Myrdraxxis, dressed all in black, glanced briefly at him with his sickening yellow eyes, before nodding forwards; Sai did not even look at him. The passed through the forest swiftly, reaching the edge of the town with ease.

From the wall, it had appeared vast—dozens of houses and buildings that stretched over the trees, made of white stone and possessing blood-red tiled roofs, lighted by only the moon. Three buildings shined the brightest among them—at the top of a small hill, at the very back of the town, where the mountains rose up in a wall to shelter it, he had seen a three large buildings, each resembling a church. Two of them were humble, simply designed buildings, or at least compared to the last—a vast, stark white cathedral that resembled the Church of Light, in Stormwind. While taking Garush's warnings to heart—that the Scarlet Crusade was not stupid—he guessed that due to practicality, the portal would be created in one of those three buildings.

He quickly related these facts to the other two. Myrdraxxis, with a solemn nod, agreed. They quickly took off, staying on the very edge of the town, nearest the mountains. Yamato glanced back once, towards the wall. He heard nothing, and hoped that the others had completed their duties. He didn't think they'd be caught, but even if they were, Naruto would be able to hold them long enough for the mission to be completed. He had Kakashi's word on that.

So with that final look, he turned forwards again, his eyes narrowed, his face set and stern.

"We'll split up," said Yamato, when they reached their destination, about ten minutes later. "One to each building. I'll take the biggest, the cathedral; Sai, take the one on the left, and Myrdraxxis-san, would you take the one on the right?"

They both only nodded, and acted on his order immediately. Sai leapt atop the roof of his building, vanishing among its many towers. Myrdraxxis vanished altogether where he stood, concealing himself in the shadow as all members of his profession did. Yamato took the last church, bounding towards it and then around to the side, where he peered up at the shimmering white stone. He heard nothing from within. He leapt to the nearest roof, and went progressively higher; he suspected wherever the plans were, they would be in a secure room, which usually meant on the highest floor or the lowest. The highest was easier to reach, so he went towards it with swift, silent bounds, reaching a small, dark window on the steeple near the back of the cathedral. The steeple stretched as high, it seemed, as the wall, and he could see the entire town laid about before him, enrobed in moonlight. It looked peaceful and harmless, and he almost could not imagination that this place was the object of so much fear.

After listening intently against the rippled, ornate window, and hearing nothing, Yamato unlatched it and slid quietly. The room was large, furnished in gold and scarlet colors, and built as if for a queen with particularly lavish tastes. The bed was enormous and covered in red silk sheets, with incredible woodwork depicting lions and gryphons and other beasts curling about the legs and sides and headboard. The tables were made of white marble sculpted by a master crafter—so ornate that they would look out of place even in the Hokage's office. The walls were dressed with wall hangings, all of golden crosses or shining red hammers surrounded by flames.

Not here, then, he decided. This was obviously a bedroom—likely for the leader of this place. Whoever they were, they were not there, and hadn't been for some time. The bed was perfectly undisturbed, and a thin layer of dust covered the sill of the window he perched on. He moved across the room, pressing his ear against the door, and then went through, hearing nothing.

He crept down the long, spiraling staircase. It circled the length of the large tower, and he could see all the way to the bottom. Upon reaching it, he heard sounds, making him tense. There were two doors. He crept up beside one, and listened through the sleek, polished wood.

He heard singing.

It was loud and rich, but hardly went past the door. He had never heard music like it—the voices, men and women, blended together into a powerful and soul-lifting chant in a language he didn't understand, accompanied by a deep, vibrating instrument that he couldn't identify. He pulled away, frowning. That left that room inaccessible for now. He went to the other door, and heard nothing within. He slowly opened it, finding it nothing more than a small storage closet, containing food, barrels of water, cleaning supplies and a number of other essentials to make the place fit for human habitation.

He cursed. This place, he reasoned, looked nothing more than just a place of worship. Would they have it here? The one room he couldn't check, which was the largest, was full of Crusaders no doubt. That meant he'd need to wait, or find another way of entering; _henge _could easily disguise him, but if they were in the middle of something, they might suspect him.

He decided to go back. He returned to the large upstairs bedroom, and went outside, bounding down to the roof of the largest section, which was in front and shaped like half of a square. He could feel the strange instrument beneath his feet, and just hear the singing. He began to move towards the side, hoping to peek through one of the small windows that lined the wall just below the roof, and just above the large, serlian stained glass windows.

"Wait."

Yamato spun so quickly that it seemed impossible, drawing a _kunai_ as he did, and almost threw it too, had he not spotted Sai's expressionless face, a few yards away.

Yamato released his breath, frowning. "What is it?"

"I've found something, in my building. This is just a clone," Sai said, pointing. "I thought it best to get you."

"What have you found?"

"Evidence of a portal, or so I assume," the clone said.

Yamato nodded, standing up. "Okay," he said. He made some hand seals, causing long tendrils of wood to emerge from his body, winding and weaving together to form a vaguely human shape, which soon evolved into a perfect likeness of himself.

'_Moku Bunshin no jutsu'_

"Let's go then," Yamato said, waving to Sai's clone. He directed his clone to continue observation. It didn't take them long to get across to the other church, which was a lot smaller than the cathedral. It was only as big as a quarter of the largest section of the cathedral, and was made of white stone with red roofing. Sai led him around towards the back, scaling the wall to reach a small window in the back. The clone directed him through it, which led into a darkened stairwell. Down the stairs, and then another, the clone led him directly back to Sai's real body, which lay crouched in the shadows of the cellar, near a door.

"What is it?" Yamato whispered.

Sai smiled, and pointed to the keyhole. "There."

Yamato played his eye to the keyhole, seeing just through it a giant metal structure, with several Crusaders hovering around it. He saw brief flashes of light, and heard the Crusaders speaking amongst themselves, and to someone else in the room that Yamato couldn't see.

"I do not understand this! Why must General Abbendis make us work with these vile creatures?" said one.

"Because they are the only ones who might help us in our goal," hissed another, sounding just as displeased as the first. "And Lady Demetria has ordered it, and she is the Voice of His Holiness. We must taint our hands and minds with this knowledge as long as she wills it."

"Fine!" the first snapped. "We will yet continue. How does this work?"

"We must continue constructing the frame. That is most important, and will take more time than the rest. Make the beasts talk, to tell us of our progress."

"With pleasure."

Yamato leaned away, as the screams began. He looked at Sai, his face cold.

"It seems they need help making it. They have a hostage."

"What is your order?" Sai said, smiling.

Yamato stood, and slowly drew a _kunai_ from his side, staring at the door.

"Eliminate them. Leave one alive, so that we can get information out of him."

Yamato kicked the door in, hurtling a _kunai_ at the Crusader who stood beside the metal structure. The man turned, eyes widening in surprise, just as the knife struck him in the neck, making him fall back with a gurgle. Yamato's eyes swept the room. Seven more Crusaders occupied it, all at the far wall; one in the midst of brutalizing a pair of gnomes chained to it. Sai swept in after him, holding a small rectangle of paper, which he tossed into the air. The black ink, in the form of a pair of wolves, leapt off the paper, growing until its depictions were life-sized. The wolves, now as big as small horses, barked and snarled, leaping at the Scarlet Crusaders who remained.

They scattered, drawing their weapons with trained grace to prepare with the new threat. Two went towards Yamato, and another towards Sai, while the rest occupied their time dealing with the monstrous wolves. The four surrounded the two wolves, their blades biting at their ink-formed bodies, spraying black 'blood' across the dirty stone floor. The wolves, in turn, slashed and bit and snarled at their opponents, who were remarkably quick in avoiding, though not always. One of them tripped over the chains binding the gnomes, allowing a wolf to get close and bite off his head. Blood burst forth from the wound, and the wolf reared back, crimson spreading through the clear gaps in its torso, where the head was now visible, floating between the creature's brush-stroked body, sickeningly mangled. The other wolf managed to latch onto a Crusader's arm, biting it clean through, before another struck at its neck with his sword, severing it, and causing the entire wolf to dissolve into ink. The other wolf quickly fell, and the remaining Crusaders attacked Sai, while the other hung back to stop his wound from bleeding.

Sai moved with fluid grace to avoid the first Crusader who attacked him, leaping under or over each strike made, an emotionless smile on his face. He wetted his brush as he dodged, and flicked its contents into the air, spraying the Crusader with ink—except the ink, before it struck him, became hardened and shaped by Sai's _chakra_ and became as sharp as needles, which impaled the Crusader's face, and killed him in an explosion of blood. One of the other two Crusaders hung back, making hand seals, while the other charged at Sai with an axe.

That was when Sai saw his face, noting that he had never seen it before. It looked like hate, but it seemed so much more than that. It was not quite like the picture in his book, so he was hesitant to label it as hate. He did this even while conjuring another ink-animal, a large bird sporting long talons, which rocketed at the attacking man and rent him across the eyes. But even then the man did not stop his attack, and flailed his axe wildly about, destroying the ink bird, and then rushing in Sai's general direction. Meanwhile, the other finished his sealing, opened his mouth, and let forth a gale of yellow-gold fire at the boy.

'_Divine Fire'_

Sai leapt to the side of the flames, which came in a single mass, blasting apart on the wall behind him to cover the latter half of the room for a few moments, before extinguishing. He lashed out with his brush again, this time only a single tendril of ink flew off; and though the Crusader tried to dodge, it wrapped around his upper torso, constricting an arm as well. Sai then wrenched the brush back, sending a sliver of _chakra_ through the rope of ink, making it sharp. The man's upper body was split apart, and he perished with wide, surprised eyes, which were soon lost in the pool of blood that formed around his body.

Yamato observed the results with a wrinkled nose. "Good job," he said, reluctantly. He stood over the corpses of his own opponents, both having been impaled through the heart with wooden spears. He turned back to the last of the men, who stood in the back, still fumbling to stop the bleeding. But he was not fearful; his face was twisted into such violent hate that his fumbling came solely from his eagerness to fight. Disgusted, Yamato summoned some thick, wooden tendrils, which wrapped around the man's torso and pulled him to his knees.

Both Yamato and Sai approached him, making him snarl in fury and curse at them.

"Shut up," Yamato said. "That thing is a portal, right?" he pointed to the metal structure, which resembled a horseshoe, though incomplete.

"I shall not talk," the man hissed, with a sneer.

Though no interrogator, Yamato thought himself intimidating. "You will, I'll make sure of that. Who is Lady Demetria?"

The man grinned horribly. "She is His Voice. She hath willed us to create that monstrosity, and so we must obey, for she knows the Light, and speaks for it. It will bring us closer to the destruction of those monsters."

"The Scourge?"

"None else! And who are thee, infidel? Thou art their servant, I see, for only they would seek to destroy the sanctity of this place." He spat at Yamato's feet. "Disgusting wretch, how could thee taint thine soul thus? What did they promise thee? Riches, power? Thou must know that they can offer nothing but sin. Thee may yet save thineself."

"I don't have to repent for anything," Yamato said, coldly. "How many plans are there of this?"

The man spat again, and laughed, but said nothing.

"He won't talk," gargled a voice from beside Yamato, making him turn. One of the gnomes had become conscious, and had opened his eye, one of the only recognizable features on his face. "They are too devoted."

"Can you?" Yamato asked, in a lighter tone.

"Not much," the gnome whispered. "They have blueprints in this room, but I doubt they are the only copies. The scribes of the abbey across from this place have likely copied more, and the General might have the original. But so might the Lady he speaks of. She has not yet returned."

"Why are you here?" Yamato asked. "The High Tinker said that nobody had disappeared in Gnomeregan."

"I'm not from there. I lived to the north, in Arathi. I don't know where he's from," he nodded at the gnome beside him. "But he's dead. They captured me when I was coming back from Tarren Mill to trade with the Forsaken, due to this alliance. I'd never been there, and before had never any reason to go. I hated it. They brought me here and told me to help them build whatever was on those plans. I am an engineer, and those plans are easy enough to grasp, so I suppose that's why I was taken, and not someone from Gnomeregan." He then coughed red, which dribbled down his front.

Yamato knelt down by the gnome, reaching into his pouch. He produced a lock pick, and started on the locks, while the gnome laughed feebly. "Don't try it, I'm already dead. I don't want to be saved. Just destroy this place and that machine. Please." He closed his eye again, and shook, making bloody tears to fall from his eyes.

Yamato said nothing, but put away his lock pick. He stood up.

"Where can I find this General?"

"In the basilica between this building and the abbey."

Yamato nodded. "Thank you." He glanced at Sai. "I'll leave this place to you."

Sai smiled. "Are you sure you need no help?"

"I'll be fine," Yamato said.

"And you trust me to take care of this place, in accordance with the mission?"

"I have hardly a choice."

* * *

Yamato left the room, and the building, the same way he came. He sped up the slope to the basilica, knowing that stealth would soon not be needed. In any case, he needed to get to this General, whom would doubtlessly know the location of the rest of the plans. Of course, should she be as obstinate as the normal soldier, it would be extraordinarily difficult to find out that information. His best option would be a capture—with that, he would have all the time he needed to crack her. Even so, the gnome's presences showed him that they didn't know how to build the portal, which was good. But of course, who was to say that they didn't have more?

When he reached the building, he went around the side again, and bounded up to the roof, where his clone would be waiting. Or had been, at least. Yamato stopped in the middle of the roof, between a pile of splintered wood, and a figure robed in red.

"_Hail, walker-in-the-night._" The voice was soft and tempered, filled with a beautiful lilt that seemed musical to Yamato's ears. The man was tall and slim, and covered in red—red hood and mask, red tunic, trousers, boots and gloves. He wore a tabard, red, with a golden hammer on it.

"Yo," Yamato said, tensing. He had not even noticed his disconnection with the clone. This man was good.

"_I know thine plan. Thou art from the otherworld? I am glad."_

"Are you?" Yamato said, almost casually. "So you expected us to come, instead of the inhabitants of this world?"

"_They would come with armies and wage battle. Thou wouldst come with stealth and make mischief. They would use thee more readily than making war, for the young innocent despises bloodshed."_

"You know a lot." He didn't have to say what might come next—Are you going to stop me?

"_Indeed." _The man said, "_but shall we dispense with such talk? I can see that thou art ready to battle. As am I."_

Yamato said nothing more. He charged the man, drawing a _kunai _and slashing at his head. The man ducked low, as two daggers, one silver and one gold, appeared in his hands, and he cut through Yamato's green vest with his first movement, and with his second forced Yamato back. He moved with deadly swiftness, his blades little more than pricks of light from the moon, which Yamato barely had time to register. He parried the next strike, cursing when the man's blade destroyed it, and the other came up and would have sliced Yamato's arm off, had he not snatched it back. Yamato recoiled, now defending himself entirely from the man's attacks, which seemed to get faster and faster. The front of Yamato's vest was in tatters within a minute, and he had several light wounds on his face and arms.

He was as fast as he was skilled, then, Yamato thought. He slammed his hands together, causing the shards from his destroyed clone to bind together, becoming a spiky mass of wooden stakes, each about an inch thick. He batted the man's next attack aside, and kicked him in the stomach, and at the same time he focused his _chakra_ and willed the wooden ball to burst, flinging the deadly spears in all directions. The man leapt off the roof, down towards the main entrance, while Yamato used a wooden shield to deflect his own projectiles. He made another seal, and thrust out a dozen wooden spears from his fingertips, all of which the man dodged, as if his body were lighter than air.

He quickly returned to the roof, stopping at the very edge, and then looking at Yamato. Yamato went still as well, despite his breathlessness. Their eyes met—shining blue and earthy brown—and then they once more exploded into action. Yamato threw a dozen _shuriken_ at the man, who cartwheeled to the side and made a few seals, which caused his body to shimmer. He blasted towards Yamato who raised his hands to defend with _taijutsu_, only to have one be grabbed and the man to swing him to the side, grab his vest, and slam him roughly into the roof, making the tiles crack. The man then stood, and made a seal.

'_Judgment of Might'_

All sense and reason was for a moment lost to Yamato, as he felt an enormous weight strike him, pushing him straight through the roof in a roar of light and sound—of shattering stone and his own cry of pain. He then fell, until he landed on his back on the stone floor of the basilica. He could think, but it was immensely hard with the monstrous pain that now assailed all of his body; and he could move, but that too seemed impossible for a time.

But when he finally did move, sitting roughly up, he wished he hadn't; he was now surrounded by no less than a hundred Crusaders, all with the same glare—somewhere between hatred and madness.

"What is this?" a voice spoke. Yamato turned his head, and beheld a beautiful woman with dark brown hair staring with hate-filled eyes at him, no different from the rest.

"An infidel, a spy!" she snarled. "For the Scourge no doubt! He must be destroyed!"

* * *

How quickly they perished, these humans.

Hisari glanced about her, at the lifeless forms of the Crusaders, dressed in all their bloody finery. Four bodies lay in her immediate vision, but four more could be found on the opposite sides of the two guard towers that surrounded her. It took little to destroy them, and she had not even needed to lift her blade. But a simple _jutsu_ had done it. She felt the nearly inexhaustible power within her flow and surge through her, granting her an ecstasy nothing else could bring. She felt light, swift, powerful—invincible. With her power, she could do anything.

She glanced half to one side, where the blonde idiot would be. Her eyes narrowed in hate. That brat disgusted her. He had the gall to even assume that she couldn't help it! What did he know? And that man, as well, filled her with even more rage. That disgusting man had touched her, and had even the thought to blackmail her into following his orders. And he was a human, too. That alone filled her with revulsion. Why should she follow the orders of such pigs? She could help it. They had ignited her rage. She hated them with all her might—barking orders to her when they had no right, attacking her, forcing her to comply with her wishes. She had every reason to hate them. Couldn't help it? Of course she could; she willingly hated them, nothing forced her to. And those traitorous Forsaken, letting the humans do what they wished. But that boy, calling her weak, filled her with even more rage. What did he know? She was strong. Beyond all measure. Did that boy have power like her? Of course not. He was simply jealous.

They all were.

* * *

Naruto climbed the wall with considerable ease, running up it like he would on solid ground, his feet making only brief, light sounds with each step. He stopped a few yards from the top, and then pressed himself to the wall, projecting similar _chakra_ from his hands and slowly climbing up, until he heard the voices and footsteps of the guards. There were two, who hailed each other when they met.

"Have you seen anything?" one said.

"No," the other said, sighing. "Nothing. Those vile creatures have learned well enough to stay away from our walls. Saddening, isn't it?"

"It is. I hope to be part of General Abbendis' patrols one day. Then I might extinguish them with my own hand. I envy the ones regularly selected. It seems I am not strong enough."

"Then get stronger. We must have all that our bodies are capable of to destroy those rotten demons." The man spat the words furiously, allowing Naruto to picture his face. The boy's lip curled in disgust. He glanced just over the top, quick enough to see how many Crusaders—there were four, two in the middle talking, and two more walking in opposite directions. He released his grip on the wall, falling back, standing perfectly perpendicular to the wall. He made a hand seal, and four clones burst into existence beside him. Without bothering to listen to the rest, he sent them over the wall at their fastest. He followed quickly, leaping to the top of the wall, just as he heard the surprised gasps of his enemies.

For all their fierce hatred, these Crusaders were hardly the most skilled. They barely reacted to Naruto's clone attack, only managing to through up their weapons flimsily to counter the quick, powerful strikes that assailed them. With blinding fast movements, Naruto's clones felled two Crusaders immediately, knocking them unconscious upon the stone ground with two powerful kicks to their jaws. Another tried to fight, while the other attempted to signal an alarm. Neither succeeded. A clone struck down the fighter with a hammer-blow to the head, which made a sickening crack when he struck the ground, his jaw broken and skull fractured. The other Naruto attacked himself, with the remaining clone; the clone kicked him in the jaw, while Naruto struck his side with a few swift punches, making the Crusader crumple with little more than a groan.

He grinned in triumph. He could have easily gone with Yamato and the others. He glanced at his four clones, and then to the left. There was one guard tower between him and the gates. He could just see a pair of Crusaders on the other side, walking slowly towards him. Hissing, he quickly wove a _henge_ around his clones, transforming them into perfect likenesses of his opponents. He jumped back over the wall, as his clones formed pairs and walked in opposite directions.

He managed it. The Crusaders didn't appear to notice, and even greeted his clones when they reached the edge of the wall. He smiled triumphantly, bounding back onto the path and as his clones marched, he dragged the unconscious bodies of the four men and stored them in the tower further from the gate. With that, he settled down to wait.

An hour passed, and he yet remained. He considered briefly trying to find the others, but decided against it. He didn't really want to talk to Hisari anyways. Through the small window in the tower, which pointed away from the Plaguelands, shined moonlight down into the dark room. Moonlight was never his favorite, but after witnessing nothing but murky brown clouds for days, it seemed more beautiful that he could have imagined.

And for some reason, it reminded him of Sasuke.

Sasuke had at some point faded to the back of his mind, a distant memory of something that he needed desperately to accomplish, but still had time. So much had happened. He had fought battles, gained friends—even family—and in the end he had almost forgotten one promise, perhaps the one that meant the most to him. But what could he do at this point? He was in the middle of the vilest place he could imagine; Sasuke was an entire world apart. So all he could do was promise himself that once this was over, he'd commit himself totally to locating Sasuke. He affirmed this to himself many times in that hour.

Some time after, however, he heard a distant, dreadful sound. He got up, slipping out of the tower and to the edge of the wall. He couldn't see much, so he slid on his goggles and activated the night-vision mode.

At the bottom, marching towards the gate, were two-dozen Scarlet Crusaders, marching in nearly a perfect circle, dressed so alike they might have been clones. At the front was a monstrous man who towered a foot above the rest, whose armor was much more ornate in appearance, with wing-shaped pauldrons and a horned helm, who strode with much greater purpose than his companions. Naruto focused his goggles on this man for a while, when he noticed something strange. Wherever the group moved, it left a luminous trail, making their route visible for some distance into the brown fog beyond. He peered closer, and switched off the night vision. It was hard to make out, but he finally realized what it was, and grimaced.

It was a trail of blood.

It was not red, but a dull, dark green. He knew it was truly blood when he saw that in the back, every soldier dragged the body of a Scourge. He also realized, with wide eyes, that the Scourge were not dead—they writhed and twisted and he could periodically hear their moans above the din of the marching. The soldiers, too, were covered in it. Their leader was the worst, dripping with things more vile than plagued blood. The guards at the gate came forwards with exultant shouts at their coming, and there was a humming sound as the gate doors began to open. Naruto ran to the other side of the wall, hopped over, and skidded his way down the vertical wall and came to a light stop at the bottom. He crept as close as he could to the wide open doors, which thankfully opened inwards, allowing him to hide behind them. The marching then stopped, and he heard several Crusaders begin to speak.

"Milord! You have returned!" cried one. Naruto assumed he was addressing the large man in front.

"Yes." The man's voice was deep and muffled, but commanded awesome power. The single word sent a shiver through Naruto's spine.

"How many did thee kill?"

"It does not matter. We have slain many hundreds in the north, near the City. Tomorrow, more shall be destroyed. Do not ask such a foolish question again."

"Of course, milord."

"It matters not how many die." He said this loudly, addressing everyone. "They all must be destroyed eventually. And conceal that face!" Naruto didn't know what face the man had put on, but from the earlier enthusiasm, it must have been a smile. "You are a soldier, it is not your duty to take pride in how many we slay. Our duty is to simply destroy. We must do it all without conscience or emotion. It is not our Way to delight in destruction; it simply must be done."

"Forgive me, milord. I-I, I know now what I speak."

"Remember your teachings, soldier." There was a pause. "Destroy the ones we have dragged." The sound of steel biting flesh and several piteous moans then came, before the leader, "milord" spoke again. "You know your duties. Purify thyselves of the taint that touches your armor now, and have it cleaned for tomorrow. Rest, but not easy—there is still so much to be done."

"Milord, General Abbendis wishes to see you and Lady Demetria."

"Hateful woman. Lady Demetria is not here. She had important business to attend to, in the midst of our campaign. She shall return in time."

"O-of course milord." The sounds of marching began again, making Naruto shrink back to the wall, activating the _Kagesui. _The small army marched past him, towards the city, 'milord' at the forefront. A horrible smell, like putrefying flesh, accompanied them so heavily that Naruto thought he could see it. The gates then began to close, and so Naruto returned as swiftly as he could to the top of the wall. Breathless, he ran towards the mountains, knowing that he should warn at least Fen about the Crusaders. He ran until he spotted a figure in the distance, and praying that it was Fen, called out to it. But when he could clearly make the figure out, he stopped.

Two green eyes, like neon lights, peered at him in the darkness, illuminating the frightening face of Hisari.

"Good," she hissed. "I was waiting for you. Call me weak, boy? Say I can't help it? I'll teach you, boy! I'll teach you…" Even the blood vessels in her face began to glow now, a terrible, unearthly green.

"…what strength can be!"

* * *

Done, finally. Sorry for the wait—I've had a few family problems, which have caused me to slightly neglect my story. Worry not; I have the next two weeks free, so I'll be able to write more.

Also, note that in the last chapter, I accidentally called Hisari a "Quel'dorei" which is incorrect—she's a Sin'dorei, a blood elf, not a high elf. Sorry about that.

I hope this chapter got to the point well enough. I've been hearing complaints like that, and I've felt that I've "beat around the bush" a few too many times in the past few chapters. Tell me if this is better or not. I rather liked doing the scene near the end.

I'm getting a lot of requests for the Draenei. They will come. Don't worry. This chapter, no, next, no, but in a few—yes, they will come. So stop asking, okay?

Think that's it. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and see you next week. Much less beating around the bush, and hopefully a pick-up in the arc plot.

See ya!

General Grievous

**_Scroll of Seals:_**

**Moku Bunshin no jutsu (Wood Clone Technique): **Creates a clone forged of wood.

**Divine Fire: **Breathes super-heated flames from one's mouth, hotter than Goukakyuu no jutsu.

**Judgment of Might: **Releases built up _chakra_ that is used by a seal (in this case, the Seal of Might, a jutsu which enhances strength) to deliver a powerful blow on a focused area, which can kill or stun opponents depending on the amount of _chakra_ the user has.

**Turn Undead: **An aura which makes Scourge flee in pain. It does not seem to affect Forsaken.

_**Bingo Book:**_

**The Scarlet Ghost (Humanoid)(Boss): **The murderer of King Anduin, whose power and speed match that of some of the most skilled shinobi, and who is utterly loyal to the Scarlet Crusade. So far, nothing else is known, save for his curious speech and incredible skill.

'**Milord' (Humanoid)(Boss): **Other than his strict adherence to the teachings of the Crusade, and his incredible hatred for the Scourge, nothing else is known about this man. He stands over seven feet tall, however, and is the leader of a large regiment of Scarlet Troopers, and seems to be associated with Lady Demetria, the Scarlet Oracle.


	13. Severing Tyr's Hand

**Disclaimer: But of course! I do own Naruto and/or World of Warcraft! But wait! Today is opposite day! Or is it? So does that mean it isn't opposite day? Yay! I mean, nooo!!!!**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Hisari didn't wait to attack, she just did. She threw herself at Naruto, brandishing the massive, curved, blood red blade that shined with the awful green light that now surrounded her and surged through her _chakra _system. She glowed like a neon sign in the districts that Jiraiya frequented, and produced a powerful wind that kept Naruto off balance. She slammed her blade into Naruto's side with furious abandon, but he parried. The contact of the two blades produced more than a ringing of steel—there was a flash of green and gold light, which tore Naruto from his feet, throwing him into the side of the wall. The six inches of solid stone was blown outwards into the air, but Naruto remained standing, his _chakra_ gripping the smooth stone beneath him, and steadying his weak and shaking legs. 

Hisari came at him again, her murderous green eyes pulsating wildly. Again Naruto parried, and was once more dazzled by the flash of light, which left him momentarily senseless; and left Hisari time to hurtle her weight into him, sending him off the edge.

Naruto fell ten feet before he recovered himself, and with a burst of _chakra, _jettisoned himself onto the wall, skidding to a stop. He glanced up, and saw Hisari staring down at him, one hand making a half-seal; it soon began to glow with intense yellow light, expanding to form a large hammerhead. She then leapt from her perch, straightening her body as she fell like an arrow, her glowing hand stretched out above her head.

'_Hammer of Justice'_

Naruto took a deep breath, twisting his body in preparation for a thrust. Hisari came like a bullet, and at the last second, Naruto drove a spinning, tightly wound ball of _chakra_—the _Rasengan—_ upwards to meet her glowing hand in a fantastic explosion of light. Hisari's _jutsu_ was dispelled utterly, and having no backing, her body was thrust upwards, flailing and spinning as result from the intense rotation of the _chakra_ she was hit with. Naruto charged after her, roaring, "Stop it! You're gonna get us found out!"

Hisari grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up. She swung her blade at Naruto's head when he came up, but he lurched back and she missed. He scrambled up, and dodged back when she swiped at him again. On the next swing Naruto brought _Magni's Pride_ up, batting her blade away, creating another flash. He then propelled himself forward and punched her in the side as hard as he could, then pivoted around and swept a leg out from beneath her. Finally he drove an elbow into her chest as she fell, sending her coughing to the ground.

"What the hell's your problem?" Naruto shouted into her face.

"You," she growled simply, pushing him off and smashing her head into his nose. It broke with a crack and a fierce burst of pain, and he fell back while Hisari recovered. "Weakling!" she hissed. She kicked him twice, driving out his breath, and then raised her sword to skewer him, shrieking wildly. He twisted to the side, avoiding the first blow, then pushed himself to his feet, stumbling some, and backed away towards the edge. Blood flooded his vision and his broken nose made it hard to breath.

Hisari rushed after him, the pulsating green aura roaring brighter than ever, slamming the blade on top of his with wild and powerful blows, all of which were absorbed by the Dwarven sword's talent, but pushed Naruto more into the stone floor with each burst of light. Naruto finally pushed her off, and then made a few hand seals, sucking in a great quantity of air.

'_Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu'_

A burst of howling flames erupted from Naruto's lips, engulfing Hisari suddenly and pushing her back. The fireball exploded in a crash against the other railing, spreading out across the path of the wall as if it were liquid, from which Hisari emerged perfectly unharmed, rushing forth, and crashing into Naruto again. Her body was surrounded in a bubble of golden light, which soon faded as she prepared to attack. Naruto was astounded by the ability, though he had seen it before—from Undrig, the paladin.

"Die," she hissed. She swung her blade high and then brought it crashing down. In the split second before her and Naruto's blades met, the blond created a clone directly behind her who planted a foot directly in the small of her back and thrust her forwards. Naruto fell back, kicked Hisari in the stomach, and flipped her straight over him, into the open air.

Hisari fell. She flailed in mid-air, attempting to push herself towards the wall to stop, her eyes wide with desperation; but Naruto didn't let her. He had already forgotten his earlier words, and now was prepared to beat some long needed sense into this girl. He shot after her and let loose a barrage of punches into her stomach and face, roaring like the winds of a tornado. He used _air-grasping _to keep her aloft, wanting to prolong the session as long as he could. Hisari snarled like a wild animal at its end, furiously attempting to regain her advantage, her anger growing greater with each second and blow, but her stamina lessening; Naruto's punches assailed her like stones at an execution, driving from her more than just life.

Finally, Naruto ended it—with a final cry, he swung his leg down in an axe-kick, driving Hisari down over fifty feet to the ground where she landed with a riotous crash and a plume of dust. Naruto pushed back, landing on the wall and skidding to a stop a few feet before the ground, where he hopped off near the crater where Hisari's body lay.

Or rather, where she was now rising, apparently unharmed. Naruto's eyes grew wide when Hisari managed to stand completely, turning her vicious eyes onto Naruto, panting loudly and painfully.

"Stop," Naruto said, finally, with difficulty due to his nose. "Just stop!"

"I am not weak," she said, as if repeating a mantra. "I am not weak."

"Yeah," Naruto said. "You are." Her eyes flashed, but he continued coldly. "You stupid bitch. You're letting that energy you've got in you control you; you can't fight without using it. You can't even use it properly."

"Shut up," she roared. "Just shut up!"

"You've gotta learn to control it," he snapped. "You've just got us found out. If anyone dies because of you—I'll never forgive you. All because you're insecure about how strong you are. That just proves it, anyways. You get so angry when you're called weak, 'cause you are weak."

"Shut up! Human! Vile, weakling, human!" Hisari snarled.

Naruto spat blood, and wiped his nose. "Geez, that's all that separates you from these bastards, huh?"

At that, Hisari roared and raised her blade, readying another attack. Naruto simply glared at her, and crossed his arms. She paused, and stared at the blonde's eyes. His eyes were narrowed and blue—perfectly blue—and she suddenly found that she couldn't move. Those eyes! What were those eyes?

"How about both of you quit it."

Naruto turned as Fen landed beside him, looking far different from usual. Though his face hadn't changed, he no longer seemed to smile, and his eyes were as narrow as his miniscule amount of flesh allowed. He glanced at Hisari for a moment, then back at Naruto. "We've got trouble. Something's been happening in the town for a while now. I think they may have been found out."

Naruto touched his earpiece with a frown. "I haven't heard anything from Yamato-taichou. But I haven't exactly been able to pay attention 'cause of her. But I saw a big group of Crusaders go in a few minutes ago, led by a really big guy who looked pretty important and very strong. They were heading up towards where Yamato-taichou and the others went."

"That seems reason enough for us to get going, huh?" said Fen. "I don't know what the hell happened here with you two, but settle it some other time, alright? Hisari, mind giving Naruto's face a bit of a fix-up? He might need it soon."

Hisari looked at Naruto, but the blonde was already moving. "Doesn't matter now. It'll heal soon anyways, remember?" He ran in the direction of the town, crying to the two behind him, "Come on! We gotta go now!"

Fen followed with but a backwards glance at Hisari, whose face was unreadable, even to him. She simply continued to stare after Naruto, long before she started to follow, and even then, it was only because her legs had started moving, and she stumbled slowly after them.

Nothing more.

* * *

Yamato glanced around him as a hangman would at the crowd he would die before. He looked at the woman who had previously addressed him. She was tall and brown-haired and extremely beautiful—or perhaps would be without the look on her face, a look he had seen many times before in the span of a few hours. She wore a small white and red cap, and wore a leather outfit with a white and red tabard over the front. But she carried herself like a queen and spoke like a commander, and so Yamato could only guess that she was the General he had been seeking. 

"A spy or assassin," she said to him. "For the Scourge, doubtless. Thou smell like them; what did they promise thee? Immortality?"

"Nothing," Yamato said. "I was hired by those who fear you—humans who fear you. I've heard a lot about what goes on here." He could stall, that was his best bet. "I wonder if you have any idea of how many enemies you have among the human race."

"They are all potential enemies, until they are purified," the General said. "Perhaps thou wilt reconsider your allegiances, Scourge! For otherwise, thou wilt perish here. We," she looked at all the Crusaders around her. "Shall destroy thine body and send thy rotten soul to suffer in the Twisting Nether. What shall it be?" As she said this, she drew a gleaming sword from her side, which shined as if revealing the sun. "Death or salvation?"

"I have," Yamato said softly, "nothing to be saved from."

"Only an infidel would speak such nonsense," she said. "So it is death."

The Crusaders began to surge forwards, coming like a wave of bloody steel. But Yamato was ready; he made a dozen hand seals in a few blurs of motion, and ended it in a clap.

'_Mokuton Hijutsu: Jukai Kotan!'_

The perfect, white, stone floor of the basilica exploded as huge, dark, wooden tendrils erupted out, coiling around Yamato as if in protection. Then more tendrils began to erupt outwards from Yamato, appearing with great roars, like wood being stretched and pulled on a grand scale. An enormous trunk burst from the floor near to Yamato, growing upwards and spreading many long branches, which shattered the glass windows. Crusaders were thrown in all directions as roots blossomed from every inch of the floor, and soon the walls; and they were crushed, bound, and even impaled by the huge creepers, though the roaring wood drowned out their screams. The General cried out in hateful fury before she was swallowed by dozens of smaller tendrils, and Yamato could no longer see nor hear her. The tendrils burst through the walls and eventually the trunk pierced the ceiling, its branches ripped apart the roof, as they grew huge tufts of lively green foliage. The basilica shook and came apart more with every moment of the _jutsu_'s duration, and more Crusaders were laid low by falling stone and debris. Many escaped towards the back of the basilica, as the entire front was soon torn to bits by the birth of an enormous tree.

The thunderous genesis awoke all of Tyr's Hand. The town below the basilica was soon alive, as Crusaders discovered the destruction of their holiest of buildings, and the deaths of some of their most trusted and sacred brethren. Ringing shouts, boiling with their maddened, zealous fury soon filled the night, as the entire town came to arms to combat the ones who sought to destroy their peace.

A giant of a man watched the growing tree from the town, his entourage of blood-soaked Crusaders silent and cold. He grunted. "What have you done now, hateful woman? Brought the fury of nature upon us? Come." He called to his soldiers. "We shall discover the cause of this before our rest."

"Yes, milord!"

----------------------

The room was dark but well furnished, and covered in beautiful scarlet drapery and extraordinarily ornate furniture, and had the pleasant smell of recently burnt incense. Or it once had, until Myrdraxxis had slain everyone within, drenching the scarlet carpet in crimson blood. Though possessing formidable skills in battle, the Crusaders lacked the crucial ability to recognize and organize against surprise attacks. No matter how zealous or driven they could be, the lack of a coherent threat against their city had made them slack off in their guard duties. He had picked them off with ease. He was now the only living being (if one could say that of him) in the church. He had searched every room for his target, and only in the last one had he found it. It was a copy room. Each desk had a version of the portal plans at some point of completion upon them. At the head he saw a stack of complete ones, copied with such precision that even erroneous ink stains had been duplicated. It was all in Common, as well.

He snatched up a copy, and read it over. The mission was to retrieve the plans, and destroy the rest; and so he rolled them up and slid them into a side pack. He then picked up a second copy, and this one he took a few more minutes to delicately fold and then slide within his tunic, where it would be hidden from every one.

He then set about the room, planting small metal balls covered in runes and sounding of liquid when shook. He had set them in every other room in the church. He sent a spark of _chakra_ into the last one, causing it to begin to glow. It was done.

He left the room in a flash.

* * *

Yamato climbed from his small nook near the base of the tree, but did not stop to observe his work. There was truly now only one way to ensure that no hint of the portal survived this encounter. The situation had changed, and so would the mission. In this case, to preserve the safety of his world, he'd need not to recover the plans, but destroy any evidence of them. 

Thus, he needed to destroy the basilica.

To many it would seem like a foolish and futile last attempt to salvage success from an otherwise failed mission; but Yamato was no fool, and such a task was not futile, at least at this point. The _jutsu_ he had used had been created by the First Hokage, and had been used, it was said, to create the village of Konoha itself. Not even the Third had been able to learn it, and so before his death, he had given it to Yamato. Its power was boundless and its uses many. When used just once, it became the center of a _mokuton _user's strength and ability, and could be used for any sort of situation.

Especially the current one.

Gathering his _chakra_, Yamato willed the mighty tree to grow. Branches began to shoot out from the trunk, and more branches from those, while the roots grew longer and deeper. They began to pierce the other walls of the basilica, and beneath the ground, they began to demolish the foundations; he just needed a bit more time. He was running out of _chakra_, but he would have enough if he destroyed the building from the bottom up, and then made for the wall. He'd have to contact Naruto as soon as he finished, however, as the boy had doubtlessly seen his tree and would be coming to help.

Suddenly the night was lit with fire, and the air resounding with dozens of booms. The roots around the base of the tree began to explode, causing it to rock and shudder, and lighting the base of it aflame. Yamato didn't understand what was happening, as there was nothing beneath the roots but the Crusaders unfortunate enough to become tangled in them.

His eyes then grew wide.

They're killing themselves, he thought. They're using suicide _jutsu_ to destroy their bodies in an effort to destroy the tree. He shuddered—what kind of people were they, to sacrifice their lives so pointlessly? Six more explosions followed that thought, finally reducing the surrounding roots to nothing more than a mass of coiling flames, from which a figure suddenly emerged, charging straight at Yamato with twisted rage saturating every feature on her face. The General was perfectly unharmed, though her hat was missing, and now clutched her shining sword in both hands as she ran, screaming a battle cry. She was not particularly swift on her legs, so Yamato had some time to prepare; he drew a _kunai_ and ran to meet her. He struck at her side, but she dodged with a pivot and rammed her sword hilt into his kidneys, sending a wave of fire through his torso. He coughed, and twisted to block her second attack with his dagger, only to have her blade cleanly slice through it and gash his right thigh. The blade felt hot when it cut him, but he managed to stop himself from crying out and instead leapt back, stumbling when he landed.

The General attacked him again. At close range, it didn't matter how quickly she ran—her hands moved twice as fast, and she wielded the blade as easily as a master painter might a brush. Her attacks were also relentless, and she seemed to possess an otherworldly stamina, as she hardly seemed to take a breath. He could find no opening to counterattack, as she never took even the slightest fractions of a second to recover herself, and threw everything into each strike. But she remained perfectly balanced and seemed always ready; it was not blind rage, then, but something else. She had full control of herself, yet only someone who had lost themselves completely could attack with such ferocity. Now any evidence of beauty had fled from her face—it was indescribable how much hate he saw in her eyes, something he didn't believe people capable of.

He continued to avoid her hits, backing steadily towards the tree, which was now almost completely aflame. She thrust at his chest, and then he seized his chance—from his arm two tendrils of wood grew, coiling around the blade as it passed near him. Before she could pull it away, he rushed forwards and thrust his knee into her stomach, and then grabbed her arm and twisted it, making her reflexively release her grip on the sword. He pulled back and slammed his foot into her face, crushing her nose and knocking her onto the ground. She spat and snarled, immediately getting up, but didn't attack. Yamato took that time to toss her sword as far as he could behind him, where it landed, point in the ground, near the flames that had once been her companions.

"Thou…hast no idea of the sacrilege thou has committed! To violate that place of purity and beauty with thine vile seed!" she snarled. "Thou wilt suffer a thousand times over for this. Thou hast no idea of what is in store for thee."

Yamato glanced slightly to the side, so that he could see the burning tree in his peripheral vision.

"I don't know," he said softly. "I think it makes this place more beautiful. It also shows more truth than this place might ever have."

The General snarled. "Scourge, thou shalt not win. The Light shall prevail, as it always has! What thou hast done to me is unforgivable! I have dedicated my soul to destroying thine kind, to purify the taint that thou hast bestoyed upon me! Vile, parody of nature! Of life! The Light shall annihilate all that seek to mimick that wonderful, God-given force."

Yamato breathed laboriously, and didn't respond. There was no point—whatever he said would simply make her angrier, and talking like this in a fight was to present him with nothing more than a breather. And he had had one, and it was time to end this.

Then the air suddenly roared. Yamato whipped his head to the side, where the church he had left Sai in suddenly exploded in a tremendous flash. Then a second later, the church Myrdraxxis had entered exploded as well. The ground shook wildly from both explosions, and issued a blast of heat so intense that it was painful. Shards of wood and stone then began to rain down on the road ascending to the basilica, peppering the Crusaders rushing up it and stalling them for a moment more.

In that time, the General attacked. She ran forwards, snarling, while he drew a _kunai _and waited. They met, and she demonstrated the same dexterity with her bare hands as with her sword—she grabbed his wrist and pulled it aside, as well as pulling him in and driving a hand into his stomach, many times. Her hits were amazingly strong, enhanced by her awful wrath, making Yamato gag and cough. She twisted his arm and brought her hand swiftly down on it, but struck wood instead of flesh and bone. Yamato had pulled away, wooden vines leaping from his body to form a dummy that the General now gripped.

'_Moku Kawarimi no jutsu'_

The General roared, and released her grip, or tried to. Vines had coiled around her arm, binding her to the wooden dummy, and more had wrapped around her leg. She struggled furiously, shouting curses at him as the vines dragged her close to the dummy, which then embraced and completely immobilized her. She screamed suddenly, as if violated.

"Vile Scourge!" she shouted, spitting in his face. "Release me!" But here, Yamato saw the first traces of something besides rage, as he wiped the saliva off his cheek. It was only a hint, but within her shaking, bloodshot eyes, he saw the first traces of fear. He stared; it was the first vaguely human emotion he had seen in a Crusader since he had arrived. She now seemed truly afraid of him, which was remarkable, as minutes earlier she had shown him nothing but disgust and hatred, and had lorded herself as superior to him in every fashion.

Perhaps that was the root of their hate, he thought. Fear.

But to generate that much hate…they must be truly afraid.

"Release me!"

"_I shall, Lady Abbendis. The Light will embrace thee a thousand times over, for enduring such suffering."_

The next moments were a blur.

The man in red appeared, and in that same movement he placed his shining gold dagger against General Abbendis' neck and cut clean through. The head fell to the side, spewing an volcano's eruption of blood from the neck, and making her body shudder violently for a few seconds, before falling limp in the dummy's embrace. Yamato had only a few seconds to realize this before the man thrust his glittering silver dagger into Yamato's left shoulder, piercing it straight through. Yamato roared, reeling back, his left arm going limp and his vision hazy from the intense, jarring pain. Oddly, the man in red did not continue the attack. He stood calmly while Yamato panted and coughed, clutching the wound tightly; but he when finally reigned his emotion, and made no other sound, the man spoke.

"_She fought well, and led well. Thou wilt never know the suffering she endured. Tortured by the Scourge she was—she owed them far more destruction than she gave, but I am pleased that she went in such a fashion."_

Yamato coughed. "You killed her, of course you would."

"_I saved her. It matters not, now. Doubtless, thine companions wilt be here in a moment. They have destroyed all evidence of the world portal in this place, in their destruction of those buildings. Thou too, hast done thy part." _He pointed to the basilica. The tree was completely consumed by flames, but it had spread to the roof of the basilica and had doubtlessly spread within. Unless put out soon, it would burn everything.

"_But thou hast not removed all evidence in the world. In great Stratholme, thou wilt find one more portal, built for the Grand Crusader himself. It is there thou must go now."_

"And what if you're lying?" Yamato asked, more to stall than anything. He knew what the man would say.

"_Thou wilt come nonetheless. Thou must ensure that all traces are removed—and if there are none, thou wilt come simply to make sure. I look forwards to thine arrival. Goodbye, walker-in-the-night."_

And the man was gone, as quickly as he had come. Yamato had no time to rest, as a moment later, a monstrous crowd of Scarlet Crusaders erupted from the curling wall of smoke that covered the road between the destroyed churches. They were beyond mad—some were even frothing at the mouth, glancing wildly around in an attempt to identify the ones responsible. Inevitably, there eyes fell on Yamato, who stood alone, by the corpse of General Abbendis.

A single, horrible cry—indistinguishable from pain or fury, a collective of the hundreds of Crusaders who had amassed to defend their town and leader, arose into the night sky. For the first time in a long while, Yamato felt the wracking tremors of fear throughout his body, from that single, zealous cry.

"Oi! Yamato-taichou!"

Yamato had never felt relief until that moment.

He looked to the side, where Naruto had appeared, sporting a bloody nose which was slowly healing, followed by Fen and finally Hisari, whose body was covered in dirt and sporting a few cuts. They rushed to his side immediately, the blonde-haired boy smirking at him.

"Need some help?"

"Please," Yamato said, more easily than he felt he should be able to. "We're going to escape. There's no point in trying to fight them all. Just create a distraction."

"I got it," Naruto said. "Oi! Fen, help me! Hisari, help Yamato-taichou out, he's hurt!"

Fen glanced at Hisari, who looked insulted for a moment, then nodded coldly. She went to Yamato's side, placing a golden glowing hand over his shoulder, whilst guiding him back towards the forest. Naruto and Fen went forwards, towards the ever growing mass of Crusaders, who were moments from surging forwards to attack; but for some odd reason, hung back, despite the ever intensifying fury as they watched their holy capital burn. They grew even worse upon seeing Fen, roaring in a single voice, "Scourge! Scourge!" Yet still they stood back, in perfect military attention, their only indication for eagerness being the ceaseless booming shouts and the wrath in their eyes. And then the crowd of Crusaders parted, though the one they parted for had been visible long before. The giant whom Naruto had seen enter Tyr's Hand earlier, his armor still covered in the rotting flesh and congealed ichor of Scourge, entered the courtyard before them.

Naruto immediately noticed something vastly different about the man. It was not his appearance, but his presence; Naruto supposed he hadn't been able to accurately feel it before, not having faced him directly. But the man exuded the most powerful presence he had felt since meeting Thrall. He seemed to rise into a giant before Naruto, even though he stood no less than thirty feet away.

But what was distinctly different from his and Thrall's presences, were that this man's was the foulest, most disgusting presence he had felt in a while. It dripped blood and violence, and he felt—hotter than the roaring fire behind him—the intense, boiling hate that was concealed behind nothing but two inches of red steel.

"Such desecration," the man spoke. "Such desecration her wrath has brought upon this place, this most holy of holy sites. She forgot her teachings, the worm." He took one step forwards. "You! Boy! You're the shadow I felt before."

Naruto's eyes widened. Guess I'm not that good at stealth after all, he thought.

"Cultured in the arts of war, are you, boy? I feel it. You are more a warrior than a rogue. I see immense spirit in you; you have chosen the wrong profession, it would seem. But it makes it easier." He stepped forwards again. "I challenge you, then, so that you might pay for this desecration. I call you to one-on-one combat. Well? Boy?"

Naruto stiffened. He glanced at Fen, who looked with disgust at the man, and shook his head slowly. Naruto then snuck a look back, and found that Hisari and Yamato had vanished. He'd buy them time, however, to get as far away as possible. He straightened, and glared at Fen to stop him, before walking forwards.

He smiled.

"I refuse!"

Fen sucked in a deep breath and released it, as the dam broke, and the Scarlet Crusade charged.

'_Heat Veil'_

They ran into a heated bubble, which in an instant became a dome of solid fire, incinerating everything within as far as possible; dozens of Crusaders became nothing but ash in seconds, as flammable gas invaded their lungs and body, and immediately ignited, combusting them from the inside out. The air was filled with short, but horrible screams, which Fen ignored, and Naruto tried to. They immediately broke for the forest, to escape before the Crusaders could recover.

The giant had avoided the death trap, and saw that Fen and Naruto were going for the forest. He drew a huge, single-edged sword, made of steel as red as his armor; and in one step, bounded across the courtyard to where the two were making their escape. Naruto stumbled, staring in horror at the man's speed; but then he had no more time to be shocked. The man's blade sliced the air so finely and powerfully that before Naruto had even seen the blade move, it had crashed into the ground before him. He tried to move away, but the earth exploded in a dazzling flash of light. Naruto was hurtled backwards, stunned, and rolled back into the undergrowth of the forest, his vision clouded with blood. He landed on his back, his body engulfed in agonizing pain.

The giant Crusader loomed above Naruto, suddenly, his huge body shielding Naruto from the light of the distant flames. He felt shivers of fear through the pain, recognizing the power the man now had over him. It'd take but a single movement from the strangely hot sword held inches from Naruto's throat to kill him. Worse, Naruto had no idea what the man was going to do; his eyes were no more than black triangular pits in the helmet.

"Perhaps I misjudged. I see only fear. Where is the spirit I saw?" The giant rumbled.

"You'll see," Naruto said, in a gasp. Then, he flashed the man a cheeky grin, and vanished into the shadows beneath him, as if sinking into a pool of water.

The giant stepped forwards, landing on solid ground. The boy was gone. He looked to the side, and saw that his Forsaken ally had disappeared as well. He stepped back, glancing about him. The boy did not return as he had expected.

How…surprising.

His companions then gathered behind him, furious.

"Milord! Where hath they gone?"

"Into the shadows," he said. "An interesting boy, he was, defying me that way. I wish to meet him again." He cocked his head to the side. "Douse the fires. Enough destruction has been caused this night."

* * *

Somehow, they managed to find there way to a meeting spot, just outside the walls. The putrid fog returned full force, and soon the clear night sky that had enshrouded Tyr's Hand was not visible. Sai and Myrdraxxis had arrived first, then Hisari and Yamato, and then Naruto and Fen. Naruto collapsed onto the ground, wiping his bleeding face with his sleeve. There was a huge gash across his forehead, and another across his nose, which had almost healed from its break; and the left side of his face was covered in burns. Everything oozed and bled, and had long ago started to hurt. But more than anything, he was tired. He wanted to rest in a quiet place, more than anything, now. 

"That went well," Fen muttered. "I suppose you could say. What'd you guys find?"

"Plans and evidence," said Yamato, "which has hopefully all been destroyed. Unfortunately, the mission isn't over yet."

They all looked at him. "What?" Naruto said, stunned. "Why the hell not?"

"I was…informed by one of them that another set of plans, and most likely another half-complete portal resides in Stratholme."

Fen groaned loudly, lying back against a tree and clapping his hands to his eyes. "Crap. I should've known."

"They told you? Why?" Naruto asked. "And what if they're lying?"

"No matter if they are, we have to go. Just to make sure. He has counted on that—I believe he wants us to come, though I don't know why." His eyes narrowed. "The one who told me was…different. He wasn't like the other Crusaders."

Fen arched an eyebrow. "How so?"

"He wasn't filled with the fury everyone else was. He was cold, and reacted with skill and intelligence, not anger. I don't know how to explain it. He acted like a true shinobi might. He seemed far more dangerous than any of the others. I've never met anyone like him."

"There was another one who was different, in a manner of speaking," said Fen. "The giant one that nearly killed Naruto and I. He spoke less like a religious zealot, and more like the commander of some army. Looks like these guys are a lot different from what we first suspected, huh?"

Yamato glared at the ground, and then at everyone else. "We'll need to head north, now. This mission just got a whole lot more complicated. But we need to find a safe place to rest first. Though I don't think staying in the immediate area would do that for us."

"There's a Argent Dawn headquarters somewhere up north," said Fen. "Or so I've been told. Somewhere in the mountains, near the ruins of some town. Best thing is to head there."

"Fine," said Yamato. "Let's get moving."

They gathered themselves up, and made for the smoggy forest away from the wall. Yamato led the way, limping slightly; and Hisari came last, sagging and walking slowly behind the others, staring at the ground. She had spoken to no one, and shook as she walked. But no one noticed. She made sure of that.

Fen sidled up beside Naruto, and gave him a slight smile.

"That was pretty surprising. I'd have though you'd have taken that guy's challenge to fight."

Naruto gave him a sideways look, and a smile followed. "I am Konoha's Number One Most Surprising Shinobi, you know!"

* * *

Tsuwabuki glanced around Gnomeregan when she first entered, leaving the awful desert behind. It was her third time in the capital of the gnomes, and she found she disliked it just as much. It was too loud—too many awful clanking and clicking and beeping and ringing sounds to process at each moment, and none of them ever stopped for even a moment. The smells too were disgusting—oily, metallic, sweaty, and burning materials (though not as much as Ironforge) all came together to make a disgusting cocktail that made the silver fox even prefer dung to it. The smooth metal beneath her paws, which made her slip and slide every time she attempted to walk, was beyond annoying, and was more humiliating as well. The dog-like boy had snickered a few times when she had first done it; he had stopped after she had bitten his leg, and given him a slight limp, which none of the medic-nins wanted to treat. The only redeeming feature of the city was that it was perpetually cool, which was quite preferable to the boiling sun of the desert behind her. Foxes were not supposed to live in deserts, and now she knew why. He first trek through it had been bad, but her second had been far worse. 

Three days ago she and the small entourage of bodyguards selected by Tsunade had left Konoha, heading across the _Hi no Kuni_ and into the deserts of the _Kaze no Kuni_, and then across the seemingly endless desert, to make a brief stop in the Hidden Sand, which had turned out to be pointless. Gaara had already gone to the portal to wait for her, putting his old teacher, Baki, in charge of overseeing the rest of the Sand while he was gone. So they had marched half a day across more desert to the portal to meet him.

Somehow, every step of the way, Tsuwabuki had found some way to be annoyed by her travel mates. At first it had been just the dog boy and his annoying dog, which just wouldn't leave her alone. But it had spread. She began to get annoyed at the screeching blonde-haired girl who would rail at the lazy moron for hours at a time, and the fat boy who sweat too much. And the stupid guy who smelt like smoke looked lovingly at the black-haired girl who wore too much smelly fragrance. To even look at the shy, pale-eyed girl annoyed her, whose lack of confidence was something Tsuwabuki could not stand; and the boy whose body was apparently made of bugs creeped her out; then there was the girl who smelt like iron and oil and never ceased jabbering to the pale-eyed boy, whom Tsuwabuki had gained a little respect for, for he had been the only one who hadn't annoyed her, in some way.

And she wouldn't even get started about the two weirdoes dressed in green.

Tsuwabuki was forced to endure all of them, the curse of not having the ability to speak with most humans. She absolutely refused to talk to the dog or his owner, and so she suffered in silence. She tried in vain to contact Naruto, but he seemed busy, or something was blocking the bond—both of which annoyed her as well, and she hoped would change by the time she got to Azeroth.

Gaara met them at the portal, accompanied by only his brother and sister and a few Sand-nin who had been there before. He spent no more than a few moments speaking with Tsunade in private, before all of them followed a single gnome through the massive ring-shaped threshold of the portal. It felt like stepping through a doorway into another room, not another world altogether. Then her final annoyance came—the reactions of the shinobi.

It was generally wonder, to some degree—whether barely showing a hint of it, such as Neji and Gaara, who only widened their eyes and glanced around; to nearly epileptic levels like Lee and Gai, who bounded about, shrieking wildly at everything they saw in that one entrance room. It took a sharp reprimand and a thinly veiled threat from Tsunade to make them stop. But not even she could hide her amazement.

"Nothing like this exists in our world," was the first thing Tsunade said to Mekkatorque, after their introductions. The old gnome smiled at her, pleased by the praise.

"Thank you," he said. "I'd give you a tour, but there is not time for that now, is there? The meeting starts tomorrow, and this day is already half over! Come, the tram awaits us."

"So this is the place Naruto helped save way back when, huh?" Kiba said, glancing around. "He's a bad story teller, you know? I didn't picture it at all like this!"

"I know, right?" said Ino. "This place is so cool. I wish we'd get to see the rest of it."

"Neji! What kind of weapons do you think they make here?" Tenten practically shouted at the young man, glancing around her with stars in her eyes and a permanent smile affixed on her face.

"I don't know," Neji said calmly. "Please let go of my arm, Tenten."

"Weapons are Ironforge's specialty, miss," Mekkatorque said, briefly interrupting his own conversation with Tsunade. "You may be able to see it, during your visit." Tenten looked overjoyed.

"I wonder what kind of food they have," Chouji asked, forgetting how tired he was now that he was out of the sun.

"Kakashi! What a wondrous place this is! Look up from your book and gaze about you in glory!" Gai roared, clapping the man on the shoulder. Kakashi glanced up from the orange tome he read, and looked around him a few times.

"Interesting," he said. "Please let go of my arm, Gai." But he put the book away, nonetheless, and walked up to where Mekkatorque and Tsunade were, in front of all the rest of them.

"Mekkatorque-sama? Might I ask you something?"

The old gnome nodded.

"Have you heard anything about Naruto or Tenzou…Yamato?"

"Nothing that I know of," Mekkatorque said. "We have heard nothing from them. But then again, the Plaguelands are an incredibly difficult area to send messages from. We most likely won't hear anything until they have completed the mission."

"Ah," said Kakashi. "Well, it's nothing that can't wait until they come back. I had something to tell Naruto and Sakura."

"You'll be able to tell Miss Sakura soon. She remained in Stormwind to receive her treatments."

"Did she?" Kakashi asked, frowning. "I didn't think Naruto'd let her go that easily. It must have taken a lot to convince him."

"So I was told," said Mekkatorque, smiling. "But she convinced him, in the end."

"I imagine," said Kakashi. "She could make him do anything."

"How are her treatments going?" Tsunade asked, sharply. "Is she alright?"

"I know not. But I'm sure she's been taken care of. Lady Kira is quite the healer, as is Archbishop Benedictus." Mekkatorque smiled at her. "I imagine she will be ready to greet you when you arrive, with a fully healed arm. You'd be surprised how much that can be done." He chuckled, a little feebly.

"You don't sound totally convinced," Tsunade said, arching an eyebrow. Kakashi had turned away, forced to speak with Gai again.

"It has nothing to do with that," he said, with a sigh. "Forgive me. I have a lot on my mind of late. I am a little worried about tomorrow's proceedings."

"It sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. You're gathering people into one room who've been enemies for years, or so it sounds," Tsunade said, stepping out into the large corridor that led to the tram. "I'd be just as worried, where I in your position."

"Your position isn't much different," Mekkatorque said. "You simply have the fortune of not being involved in these prejudices. It must be so much less complicated where you come from. I hear that only humans populate your world."

"That's debatable," Tsunade muttered. "On both points. Besides, people find a hundred other things to find fault with. That's why war exists. Race is just one factor; it'll never be the sole reason."

Mekkatorque nodded. "Nonetheless, I hope young Lady Kira knows what she is doing. She will need to deal with all of this quite carefully. She handled it splendidly during the attack on Stormwind by Onyxia and her brood, but this is another matter. There is much bad blood between the leaders of these kingdoms; I myself am no different. Though I wish to keep an open mind, I know that some of them are responsible for the deaths of many of my people in past wars."

"She will do what is necessary." Both of them jumped at Gaara's voice. He walked silently beside Tsunade, as they rounded the corner and headed towards the tram's cavern. "She has all that is necessary to make it work, according to Uzumaki Naruto."

"But she's young, and so are you, Kazekage-sama," said Tsunade, a little sharply. "I don't mean any disrespect, but that will make a difference, in somebody's eyes."

"Of course," said Gaara, without emotion. "But as long as she speaks true and with confidence, she will get her message across. And she has no desire for war or conflict between these people. She will do, therefore, what is necessary to prevent that."

"She is a smart girl," said Mekkatorque. "I agree with Lord Gaara. Ah! Here is the tram. There is room for eight in each, so choose whichever one you like. The tram will last four hours, and when we reach Stormwind, you'll be led to your accommodation."

Tsuwabuki winced at the screeching sound the tram made as it ran along the tracks to the platform they stood on. When the doors opened, she immediately leapt onto the last of the cars, curling up on one of the comfortable leather couches, and burying her head in a pillow. Only four more hours, and she'd be free. She couldn't wait to see Kira and Sakura again, either.

Those two girls were not only good petters, but didn't annoy her in the slightest. She also hoped to see Naruto again soon, as well. But somehow she felt it would be some time before she met her partner in person again.

* * *

"You're late." 

Orochimaru spat onto the dusty floor of the room, and hissed. "Forgive me Sasuke-kun," he said. "But I'm not in the mood for your cheek."

At the other end of the monstrous room, which was populated only by rows of columns and lit by only a few rows of torches, and sitting before a golden statue of a giant snake, a figure watched the Sennin and his silver-haired companion. He sat before a large basin filled with fire, so his form was obscured by shadows, but Orochimaru knew the voice and its disgustingly arrogant tone. Any other day, he might have played Sasuke's game, and pampered the boy like a prince with oozing, insincere apologies. He'd cater to the boy's every selfish demand, which was nothing more than an exercise in power over his master; Orochimaru knew that Sasuke was far different from how he acted.

But he was not in the mood for it.

"Hmph. I suppose it didn't go as you had planned it," the boy said. His eyes blazed Sharingan red across the room, and seemed so close to Orochimaru. It was as if the boy stood a foot in front of him. That was all you could see of the boy's face. Those eyes, those covetous, beautiful, powerful eyes that Orochimaru hungered to have.

Those wonderful eyes.

Orochimaru scowled at his apprentice. "It did not."

"Figures," the boy said. "If you had let me come, it might have been different."

"No matter how confident you are, Sasuke-kun, you are inexperienced in these matters. You are strong, but you'll need more than that against Akatsuki. And even more than what they have to defeat your brother."

"If you weren't so slow, that might be different," he said. "You haven't taught me a new jutsu in weeks."

"I have been busy, and you have yet to master that blade I gave to you. You're impatient, Sasuke-kun." For some reason, Orochimaru's anger was ebbing away. He enjoyed doing this with Sasuke; pointing out faults in the boy's fighting style pleased him, as it showed both of them that Sasuke was not as infallible as he was taught to think. He knew it angered the boy, because he had grown angry when Sarutobi had done it to him. And like him, Sasuke was learning to hide that. He would really be a fine shinobi, he reflected. It was unfortunate that he'd never live that long.

The boy scoffed, and continued the meaningless banter. "When am I going to learn a new jutsu?"

"When I'm ready. Return to your room, or practice with one of the prisoners. I'm tired."

"Fine," the boy said, with false petulancy, but he did not move. He stared at Orochimaru with the frightening red eyes, which began to slowly spin.

"You have a visitor, by the way. I told him you'd be back soon. I don't know where he is now, though. You might have to find him yourselves."

Then the boy was gone.

Kabuto glanced sideways at his master, adjusting the new pair of glasses he had produced. "What did he mean?"

Orochimaru's lip curled. "It appears we have a guest." He glanced around, casting his amber eyes on every inch of the room. The temperature of the room dropped, and all the fires suddenly went out, as if snuffed by an invisible, omnipresent hand. But Orochimaru was used to the darkness, and could see the entire room regardless. Nothing moved and everything was completely silent, for not even his or Kabuto's breath pierced the thick veil of darkness.

"Come out, honored guest," Orochimaru called. "It is rude to not introduce yourself to your host."

A gust of wind ruffled Orochimaru's hair, which was odd, as they were several dozen feet beneath the earth. It was frigid like winter, but slight like spring, draping itself over him and Kabuto as something appeared in a blink before them. A figure garbed in a black, hooded cloak, like a solid mass of fluttering shadow, appeared before Orochimaru. Kabuto recoiled in shock, drawing a kunai, but stopped when Orochimaru lifted a hand.

He was sure that in the darkness, the man could see him. So with a poisonous smile, he greeted his guest, offering a hand and a slight bow to complete the sarcasm.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Though not a typical greeting, it fit. He did not lower his eyes either, affixing them on the hood, where the man's eyes would be.

**"I come at the behest of my master to request an alliance with you, Orochimaru. It is something that may be needed for both of us, quite soon." **

The voice was brittle and raspy, but deep and resounding. Orochimaru felt the hairs on his neck stand up, but not from fear. Each word was carried like an arctic wind to his ears. But he narrowed his eyes, and frowned.

"Oh?" said Orochimaru. "But even so, what makes you think you may enter unasked? You are terribly rude, and for that, I may simply kill you and thus decline your master's offer."

The man laughed; it was a chilling sound. **"Kill me? I wonder. That would be an interesting endeavor. It has been a long time since I've contemplated such a thing. But no matter; forgive my manners."**

Orochimaru's smile sweetened. "You have yet to tell me your identity. I don't like that; especially since I have just returned from a battle with my worst enemies, and my patience for dealing with foolishness is at an end. You are easily the worst guest I have had yet, and this place is filled with the most vicious, terrible criminals and shinobi you might find. I might kill you just from principal, but that seems to surprise you. What kind of man does not think of death, and enters this place?"**  
**

**"One who knows it."** the man said.

Orochimaru stopped smiling. "Is that so…?"**  
**

**"You have a number of enemies, Orochimaru. More than you can imagine, at this point. With so many, it will not be long before you and your 'village' are crushed by the overwhelming power of your enemies. I have come, not only by the will of my master, but my own as well, to offer a hand to you. Take it, and your strength will become so great that none of your enemies would be able to move against you. The very mention of your name would send fear into their hearts, and despair into their ranks, and with your own power, you would be able to destroy them utterly, and take what is yours back." **The cruel cackle came again.

"You're confident in your strength, whoever you are. I'll admit it has me intrigued. But I have heard such proposals before, and none of them have come to fruition. What proof do you have, that you can offer this? And what makes you think I'll take it?"

"**Because your desires are no different from our own. You seek an ultimate understanding of the world, and we are so close to discovering that. There is much we can give you, and your apprentice as well. But at this time, I can only offer a name."**

"Oh," Orochimaru said, as a smile spread across his face. The name whistled in his ears, a soul-chilling wind that brought a delightful mixture of fear and excitement to his heart. "Is that so...?

"You have my attention, then; tell me what _he..._has to say. I'm all ears."

* * *

Done. Hope it went well. I thought it did, but that hardly means a thing nowadays, huh? 

The action scene with Hisari and Naruto was a bit short, but I did it because as a battle, it only needed to get a point across. Neither Naruto nor Hisari used their absolute full strength, though Hisari was leaning dangerously close to by the end. Who knows, though; there may be more of them in the future. Hisari won't be converted as easily as the rest!

General Abbendis died easily, but she wasn't an important character, just to show the strange anger of the Scarlet Crusade from an analytical character like Yamato's point of view. The Scarlet Ghost is going to come back soon, as is the giant "milord" whose name will be revealed soon enough.

Next chapter is the meeting between the leaders, and more dark happenings in the Plaguelands. An adventure begins for some of the other characters.

Hope it was a good chapter, and see you next week!

_**Scroll of Seals**_

_Mokuton Hijutsu: Jukai Koton (Wood Secret Release: Birth of Dense Woodland): _Creates a giant tree, which can be altered or grown according to the user's whims and _chakra_ levels. Can be used for attack, defend, or domestic uses. Created by the First Hokage, and said to be used to create Konohagakure.

_Hammer of Justice: _Creates a hammer of _chakra _upon the user's hand, which can clobber and stun foes, even kill them, if used with enough force.

_Blessing of Protection: _Creates a bubble of glowing energy around the user, protecting them from all harm.

_Sacrifice of the Crusade: _Destroys body of user to create a massive explosion. Suicide technique.

_Moku Kawarimi no jutsu (Wood Replacement Technique): _Creates a dummy from wood to replace the user, and can be used to capture foes as well.

_**Bingo Book**_

**General Abbendis (Humanoid)(Elite): **A vicious, yet powerful leader of the Scarlet Crusade who lives in Tyr's Hand, and who commands a huge amount of the Crusaders stationed there. She has a tactical mind, but is easily incensed, especially on matters relating to the Scourge. It is said she was tortured by them, and thus possesses a ferocious grudge against them, and longs for revenge. Skilled with a sword.


	14. The Distressing Council

**Disclaimer: Owning Naruto or World of Warcraft is not my thing.**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

"Where is she, milord?"

"On one of her 'important' missions; she decided on a whim the place of her origins."

"Where is that?"

"It is not for your concern. She will return when ready, and the operation shall begin again. We must make haste for Stratholme. It is there that she intends to meet us. Come, soldier, there is work to be done."

"Of course, milord."

* * *

"Tsunade-shishou!"

The Hokage smiled widely when Mekkatorque's prediction came true. When Sakura met her at the entrance to the great hall of Stormwind Castle, she did so with both arms, embracing her master fiercely, which assured her that the girl was fine. Tsunade allowed herself a brief smile, and returned the hug with affection.

"It's good to see you're alright, Sakura," she said. Then she winced. "But you don't need to prove it on me."

Sakura released her master, and stepped back. "Sorry," she said, slightly embarrassed. "It's just good to have this back in working order." She flexed the bandaged arm for emphasis, and Tsunade observed it with a clinical eye: it moved well, without so much as a hesitation or wince, so she wasn't in pain. And she seems to have control of her strength again, she thought, rubbing her sides, where Sakura's arms had squeezed like vices a moment before.

"I am glad you have returned to health, Sakura-san," Gaara said, beside Tsunade, accompanied by his little smile.

"Thanks, Gaara-kun," she said. "You're looking better as well, which is just as good."

Sakura then spotted the others behind Tsunade, and after flashing a final smile at Gaara and Tsunade, she rushed off to see the others. Tsunade allowed a final brief glance at her apprentice, before turning forward to meet the violet eyes of a beautiful girl with golden hair, dressed in a flowing white robe. She stood next to Archbishop Benedictus, who looked as annoying as he had before, and another girl with short, dark hair. She walked forward, Gaara trailing a little behind her, and bowed to the girl in white.

"Kira-hime, I presume?" she said.

The girl nodded, and a small blush marred the emotionless, queenly façade on her face. She returned the bow, however, hanging her head to recompose herself. Kira's violet eyes then went up Tsunade's entire figure, growing a little wide around her chest area, which was quite common, before settling on Tsunade's face and her honey-brown eyes. For some reason, she felt the need to bow again, and blushed a little more.

"It is an honor," said Kira. "You're everything Naruto described you."

"That's not generally a good thing," Tsunade said. "Especially when his nickname for me is 'baa-chan'. But I get what you mean. You're not so different from what he said you were either; and I can see why he and Mekkatorque-san holds you in such esteem, for somebody so young. You're quite good-looking as well. No wonder he likes this place so much."

Kira blushed hotly, but managed to retain her voice. "Y-yes. I'm glad you could come. I hope this will be an illuminating and helpful experience for you, and it will also give you a chance to see the city, I hope."

"Yeah," said Tsunade. "I do believe it will be illuminating."

Kira then turned to Gaara, and bowed deeply. "And you must be Lord Gaara. Naruto has spoken much of you as well. It's a great honor to meet you."

"Likewise," said Gaara. "I am…pleased to be a part of this. But I cannot fully say whether my village will end up joining. I have come merely as an observer this time. There is still…much to be discussed."

"Of course," said Kira, nodding quickly. "But I am happy for your presence nonetheless, and your open-mindedness." She bowed. "It must a be a little difficult accepting something like this. But I hope that I can convince you of its worth anyways."

"There is nothing to convince," said Gaara. "Uzumaki Naruto assures me of its worth, and I do not deny it. I am merely debating its feasibility and application to my village." He gave her a small smile. "And I am here to determine that."

Kira smiled widely. "Thank you," she said earnestly. It pleased her that Naruto's name was as widely regarded in his world as it was in her own, at least among Konoha's allies. And Gaara was a good friend of Naruto's, which meant she had another ally; she just needed to make the idea as appealing and feasible as possible to him, so that when he returned to his village, he'd be able to convince its council of the alliance's worth.

Tsunade then addressed her again. "I'd like to have a talk with you, woman to woman, sometime, but I can see that now you're a bit stressed. Nervous?"

"A little bit," Kira said. "I honestly don't know what's going to happen. I requested the meeting, but now I'm not so sure having it on such short notice was a good idea. Don't worry, though," she said, before Tsunade could speak against her previous statement. "Everyone's convinced me that it had to happen sooner or later, and I just chose sooner. I will do my best to make sure everything goes well."

Tsunade nodded. "We'll talk about the funds issue as well, but that can wait until after. If it isn't too troubling, I'd like to see my room. I need a nap. It's been a few days since I've slept in a proper bed."

Kira nodded vigorously. "Of course! I should have realized. Kylia! Could you show Lady Tsunade, to her room? It's next to Sakura's—wait, why not just show everyone to their rooms? They're all on the third floor, and once they've settled down, they'll be free to wander the castle or city as much as they like." She smiled at the group of Naruto's friends, who returned the look in varying forms. Almost all of the men blushed in some way at her attention, and so did most of the women, though for entirely different reasons.

Kira hoped to eventually know all of them, as they were all Naruto's dearest friends.

"By the way," Tsunade asked. "Have any of the others arrived?"

"Two others, aside from you, Lord Gaara and the High Tinker Mekkatorque. King Magni Bronzebeard of the dwarves of Ironforge is currently residing in his residence in the Dwarven Quarter of the city, and Chief Vol'jin of the trolls, who resides near the walls of the city where most of the troll population is situated now. The others will arrive throughout the rest of the day and tomorrow," said Kira. "You'll likely meet both before then. I've invited them to dinner, along with you and Lord Gaara; you don't have to attend, but—"

Tsunade chuckled, cutting her off. "Don't worry about that. We'll show up." She then bade the young princess goodbye, and left with the others, leaving Kira, Mekkatorque and Benedictus alone in the great Hall.

The gnome turned to her, his eyes sparkling. "Quite the character, is she not? She reminds me a little of King Varian. She has apparently only been Hokage for a little more than two years, and yet she carries herself as a queen of many decades might."

"I think she's a vile snake," said Benedictus, with an accompanying nod.

Kira ignored her master, and continued to smile long after Tsunade was gone from her sight. The woman was somehow reassuring to her, and now she felt more than ever that this meeting was going to succeed.

* * *

Shortly after setting their things in their respective rooms—which were still luxurious compared to the small apartments, little houses, and traditionally simple family homes that they were used to—Sakura led them out into the city with Tsunade's blessing.

"Never mind you being my bodyguards and all," she had muttered. "But get out of here. I expect you back before this dinner thing, though, and I don't want you to treat this as a vacation in the slightest. Take not of your surroundings, and don't forget that you're shinobi first, tourists second."

Sakura impressed most of them with her general knowledge of the city, which she had absorbed from frequent trips to the city libraries and conversing with a highly respected scholar named Sevenius Coutrend. The man possessed a rather biting and sarcastic personality, and a severe limp, but seemed fond of Sakura's general love for learning and knowledge, and readily supplied her with countless books on Azeroth's history, from the beginning of the world to its current state of affairs. Sakura found it hard to treat the histories as anything more than wild fantasy, however. It all seemed so unbelievable, so outlandish, and so _mythical_ that she felt at first that she had to take it with several grains of salt. But it was all as true as her own world's history, and even had accompanying biases. It did not stop her from feeling a little foolish, however, when she described a particularly outlandish tale to her friends that she remembered reading—it had something to do with talking pandas that brewed beer.

But otherwise, Sakura did little else that the city itself did not do to impress them. It was so vastly different, and yet so vastly similar to Konoha that nearly every moment they'd make a comparison of one shop to another in Konoha, or one street to one of Konoha's narrow roads. But what most impressed them were the people, and before long, they had split into several groups with each pursuing their own desires.

Kiba dragged Hinata and Shino into a large, popular pub (which was amusing in itself, as they had no word precisely for pub, and so Kiba took great enjoyment in repeating it as often as possible afterwards), where they were exposed to a multitude of colorful characters. Kiba quickly made friends with a small group of dwarves who introduced him to the wonders of no drinking age. Hinata had to leave and find Kurenai, who had settled down in a café with Asuma, to drag the drunken boy and his strangely yet similarly inebriated dog out of the pub, and eventually back to the castle.

Shikamaru and Chouji left Ino and Sakura to girl talk, and wandered about the shops and eateries, until they found a nice, peaceful park near the edge of the city to view the clouds. They shared their chosen cloud viewing spot with a strange creature that from Naruto's descriptions, they were able to identify as a tauren. Though initially a little frightened by his size, he was quite peaceful, and simply sat upon the grass a little ways away from them, his head turned up. They shared the little plot all afternoon, never speaking more than a few words between each other, but by the end, when they left to return to the castle at sundown, the tauren asked them, in a rumbling voice, whether they would return or not, for he had never quite met such peaceful humans who enjoyed his favorite pastime so much. The two shinobi left with a promise of returning sometime tomorrow, feeling much more at ease.

Gai and Lee dragged Neji and Tenten about the city with frightening earnestness, wanting to observe every facet of life in Stormwind and all the people it contained. They terrified more than a few locals with their loud voices and dramatic gestures, angered a few more, but puzzled the most. More than once Tenten had to assure someone that they weren't, in fact, escapees from the hospital suffering from insanity. They said this not quite believing it themselves.

Tsunade did little more than sleep, much to Shizune's annoyance and embarrassment. Wasn't she supposed to set a good example, instead of drooling over her pillow and making strange sounds all day?

Kakashi stayed with Sakura and Ino for a while, but at some point wandered off and wasn't seen again until they had reconvened at the castle. Nobody knew precisely what he had done, and he would give no hint to the matter. Sakura, however, suspected something unsightly, and probably perverted, so she didn't inquire much further.

Tsuwabuki left the city as soon as she could, wandering the forests around it in search of food, and again attempting to contact Naruto, who still wouldn't answer. It disturbed her that she couldn't feel anything through the connection, other than that he was alive. It was as if something blocked her, but she couldn't say what. She didn't particularly enjoy her wanderings either. The forest was strangely quiet, and everything she saw seemed restless and jittery, as if something was going to happen (which made it particularly hard to hunt). She did not smell or notice anything different in the forest, but she did not pass it off as her imagination. Something _was_ wrong. Whatever it was, however, she hoped it would not interfere with the following day's proceedings. She eventually returned, and sought out Sakura, who was with Ino.

Sakura led them to the small, nice restaurant run by an old couple at the edge of the city, whose food and company she adored, and there she told Ino everything that had happened in Stormwind since she had arrived, which wasn't much. Inevitably, however, Ino brought up the subject that Sakura didn't want brought up.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" she commented offhandedly.

Sakura frowned at her, and glanced around. "Who?"

"Kira-hime, of course. No wonder she's a princess. She's just beautiful! I'm a little jealous; though you must be a lot more." Ino grinned slyly.

"Why? I'll grant you she's pretty, but so what?" Sakura said, idly stroking Tsuwabuki's head.

"Well, given that she's supposedly pretty fond of Naruto…"

"That has nothing to do with this. I'm not jealous of her because she's good friends with Naruto. I'm just not sure how to act around her."

"So you are jealous?"

"No!" Sakura snapped. "And why does every conversation we have revolve around Naruto?" She leaned forwards. "You have a thing for him or something?"

Ino pulled back, blushing slightly. "Of course not. He's sort of good-looking, but he's not my type. And I was just making good conversation, forehead-girl. It's better than arguing, don't you think?"

"We usually end up arguing anyways," Sakura muttered, sighing. "Naruto's a teammate, Ino. That's it. Don't look into it, okay?"

Ino regarded the girl coolly. She nodded, but she wasn't convinced. She knew Sakura like the back of her hand, because the girl was so much like her. Something like this wasn't something that she'd simply say outright over a simple conversation. She simply liked to tease, and get the girl to think about other, more girlish things, as something seemed like it was bothering her. She was pale and looked rather tired, which at first Ino had attributed to her recovery, but was unsure now. And the best way to get something out of Sakura was to rile her up, and hope she revealed it in her anger.

Ino chuckled. "Well, whatever. Kira seems like a nice girl anyways. Hopefully we'll get to know her more. Guess we know why Naruto likes this place so much, huh? By the way, when will he get back? Do you know where he went?"

"He went north, way north, according to the maps. To a place called the Plaguelands."

"Sounds scary. What're they like?"

"Pretty dangerous from what I have heard. But he'll be fine," Sakura said, with simple confidence.

"Why?" Ino said, grinning ever slier.

"He has a promise to keep," Sakura muttered. A worried look then passed her face, which Ino decided to ignore. She didn't want to ruin a perfectly good conversation with _that_ topic. At least she knew what might be bothering the girl. She took a sip of her drink.

"So what's medical _jutsu_ like here? Any different from back home?" Ino had been training as a medic-nin as well, though she knew she was nowhere near as good as Sakura. She did have a few abilities that Sakura didn't, however, which kept her from being even the slightest bit jealous of the girl.

Sakura smiled, and quickly progressed onto a topic they both enjoyed.

Throughout all of this, Kira worried and worried, and hoped fervently that everything was going to go well, and planned what to say. She had only Kylia to assure her of this, for Benedictus never liked making false promises, and had an inkling that something would happen. In such a situation, with so much at stake, something would go wrong. And with the festering blood between the members of the alliance, he was sure that it would take all of his and Kira's abilities to hold the tenuous bindings together. He lamented that Naruto wasn't there, either. The boy was their cement. There was much less chance of anything going wrong, if he were there.

They would have to make due, nonetheless.

After returning to the castle, they found that Tsunade was still asleep, but Kakashi suggested they fufill their duties as bodyguards for the rest of the evening. Kira quickly got them all something to eat, and met each of Naruto's friends briefly, before Kylia hurried her off to dress for her own dinner. But for those brief moments, Kira knew exactly why Naruto talked of them constantly—they were quite interesting.

Upon her departure, the shinobi split into their individual teams, with Kankurou and Temari joining in with Sakura and Kakashi, and scouted every inch of the castle to familiarize themselves with it. They then returned long enough to escort Tsunade downstairs, to where a series of heavenly smells gathered. They met Kira at the door, where Tsunade dismissed the bodyguards, telling them to get some rest.

Kira she graciously showed Shizune and Tsunade in, saying that Chief Vol'jin couldn't make it, as he was busy with a few matters of his own. Inside, they met the only of the other leaders to arrive—King Magni Bronzebeard. Tsunade found the dwarf to be to her liking; he was short, but filled with immense presence. His eyes were solemn, but twinkled like rare stones when he laughed, which erased the lines of terrible grief from his face. As wise as he was powerful, the king enjoyed a rousing discussion with Tsunade about their favorite drinks, much to Shizune's consternation and Kira's amusement. The Hokage delighted King Magni, who had never met a woman quite like her, so blessed with dwarven talents. "You'd be quite a home in Ironforge, milady. You might have to duck your head a bit, but I'm sure you'd find it quite satisfactory," he'd said, his eyes crinkled with mirth.

"I'll have to make a visit then," Tsunade had said, laughing.

Kira was beaming by the end. Tsunade was quite impressed with King Magni and the two got along quite well, and Mekkatorque engaged in a lengthy discussion with Gaara about his plans for the gate outpost, and possibly more defenses for the Sand and Konoha.

Kira went to sleep that night a little more comforted than before. She was surprised to find Tsuwabuki already in her room, asleep on the floor. She smiled even wider, and as she climbed into bed, she decided that things would go well.

That was what Naruto would think, after all.

* * *

The night elves came first.

It was mid-morning, and a trumpet blast sounded throughout the city, and soon Kira was awake and frantically dressing, with Kylia tumbling about the room in an effort to make her mistress look presentable, but only slowing the process. When they had finally finished, and Kira looked like the dazzling queen-to-be that she was, they rushed down to the great hall, where Benedictus and a large retinue of guards already waited.

"I thought you might sleep in," Benedictus said. "Quite unbecoming, my dear."

"Sorry," Kira mumbled, blushing a little.

Soon after this, a single messenger came through the front doors and announced the coming of Lady Tyrande Whisperwind and Archdruid Fandral Staghelm. Both night elves, looking as graceful and powerful as the last time she had seen them, albeit slightly lighter in complexion, entered the room at the same time, Fandral striding slightly ahead of his companion. Kira and Benedictus walked forwards to meet them.

"Welcome to Stormwind, Lady Tyrande, Archdruid Fandral" Kira said, bowing.

"We are happy to arrive," said Tyrande softly, lifting the girl's chin up to meet her eyes. "And do not be afraid to meet our eyes. You stand on the same level as us." Her beautiful eyes sparkled. "I am glad to see you in such fine health; you've grown even more beautiful than before."

"T-thank you," Kira said, blushing a little. Way to start off, she thought.

Fandral said nothing. The stony archdruid moved past Kira and merely nodded to Benedictus, who returned the gesture. Both elves went to sit at the expansive circular table that Kira had had crafted for this very occasion. It would take the place of the rectangular Council table that her father and grandfather had favored.

And it was already occupied. Tsunade lounged backwards, with Sakura standing a little ways behind, looking slightly annoyed by her master's informal posture. Gaara sat in silence next to Tsunade, in an upright posture.

"Lady Tsunade! Lord Gaara!" Kira cried. "When did you…?"

The woman turned and smiled at her. "I've been here for ages. I thought I might meet everyone as they come in. Makes it easier, in the long run."

"I did not want to be late," Gaara said, simply.

"Also, Sakura's going to be with me, if you don't mind. Is that alright?"

Kira glanced at the girl, who met her eyes almost in challenge. But Kira nodded, and gave her assent, which felt odd. Giving permission to an older woman seemed somehow incredibly strange. She glanced at Benedictus, but his eyes were still on the doorway.

Tsunade then stood, and turned to the night elves, who stood in the middle of the room, slightly surprised by her sudden appearance.

"I am Tsunade, Godaime Hokage of Konohagakure." She bowed, but did not lower her eyes. "I am pleased to meet you both."

"Tyrande Whisperwind, High Priestess of the Moon. It is good to make your acquaintance," Tyrande said, bowing.

"Archdruid Fandral Staghelm," the other elf uttered, but remained rigid, save for another nod. Tsunade recovered from her bow, and sat down as Gaara introduced himself in a similar manner. The two elves took their seats, as another series of trumpets announced the coming of another leader.

King Magni Bronzebeard appeared next, bowing to Tyrande and expressing his pleasure that they should meet once again, as the last time had been many years before. Mekkatorque came next, unaccompanied by any trumpets, as he had been within the tram station all night, fiddling with its configurations to stem his nervousness.

This was how they gathered—the former leaders of the Alliance in the room, speaking to each other as if no time had been lost. Each of them stood at a slight distance from each other, Mekkatorque and Magni on one side, and Tyrande and Fandral on the other.

Of course, that wasn't to say they all got along. They were leaders and acquaintances, but Magni had never been friends with the night elf leaders, and neither had Mekkatorque. For all the aid they had given each other, they had rarely met, only corresponding through messengers. And Benedictus stayed to the side, and never spoke to them, keeping his eyes focused on the doors. Benedictus did not have the familiar relationships that they did.

When the next trumpets blasted, the room, save for Tsunade, Gaara, and Sakura, tensed. The messenger announced (in an audibly nervous voice) the appearance of Chief Vol'jin of the trolls, advisor and war-brother to the Warchief Thrall, and leader of the New Gurubashi Empire.

The guards grew stalk still, and all sounds seemed to cease, when Vol'jin entered the room; he stood a massive seven feet, a light blue-skinned, wiry being with huge protruding tusks and a fiery Mohawk. He was dressed in thick leather trousers, and a leather harness with large pauldrons carved of wood; and he was covered in all manner of strange idols and jewelry befitting his status. He had clever and cunning eyes, just like Kira remembered, only his face was not lit with the smile she remembered him having.

She approached him immediately. "Chief Vol'jin, it is good to see you again." She bowed, but this time kept her eyes up.

The troll chieftain gazed down at her for a moment. He didn't react, making her fear she had done something wrong, and his clever eyes even narrowed slightly. Was this why he hadn't shown up for dinner? Was he angry with her, or worse, with the alliance in general?

"Ye need ta lighten up a bit, little princess girl, ye be forgettin' all da fun times we be havin'?" His face broke into a huge grin and before she could stop him, he swept down and gave her an all-encompassing hug. To her credit, she only squealed once, before bursting into laughter, as he set her down. She composed herself as quickly as she could, while Vol'jin entered the great hall, his eyes falling on the leaders who had already arrived.

He stopped, and stared for a moment, looking over each of them in turn.

"I am Vol'jin," he said, in Common. "Pleased to be meetin' ya." He waited for them for a few seconds to respond, in which most only stared. Fandral did not even glance at the troll, Mekkatorque remained stiff, and Magni's eyes grew stony, and the grief lines on his face even more pronounced.

Finally, Tyrande stepped forwards, and going against everything she had known for most of her life, she bowed to the great troll.

"We have met before, Chief Vol'jin, many times in terrible circumstances. I hope we can amend this soon enough."

"And I too, Lady o' de Moon. For me brudda's sake, I hope so too." His eyes switched to Tsunade and Gaara, who now stood as well. He grinned. "Ye must be de one me brudda's talked about, eh? Bit different from what he describin', ya know?"

"That brat," muttered Tsunade. "But I get that a lot. You don't normally look like I do at my age, for a human at least."

Vol'jin grinned, "Aye, dat true, dat true, mah sistah. But it be good ta meet yah, anyways." He held out a three-fingered hand, which she grasped, smirking. He was odd looking, she decided, but quite easy to get along with. He met Gaara in a similar fashion, and even managed to get the young man to award him with one of his larger-than-normal smiles.

The trumpets blasted again, soon after this. The messenger announced, again with some audible trepidation, the arrival of Thrall, Warchief of the Horde and ruler of Orgrimmar, and High Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof, Lord of Thunder Bluff. The guards grew even more tense when they entered, for when both stepped into the great hall, it felt stifling, as if there was no longer any room to move or breath. Thrall looked more a Warchief than he ever did, with his chest thrust out and his electric eyes wide and searching. Cairne was so tall, and his face so full of wisdom, that even among the mass of wrinkles and graying hair that covered his face, he still managed to appear a true leader. He walked straight up, standing a terrifying eight or nine feet tall.

Only Tyrande managed to meet Thrall's eyes with something different from distrust; Magni stood a little bit higher, but managed to resist settling his hand on one of his weapons—two gigantic hammers that he carried everywhere. Mekkatorque forced down the swell of bile at the knowledge that many of his own kind had been slain by this orc and his forces. Fandral did not bother to hide his evident distaste for the two newcomers, but then again, his face had not changed from when Vol'jin had entered.

"With such an introduction," Thrall said softly, "why have I even come?"

Kira heart hammered twice as fast at the Warchief's words, and she hurried forwards.

"Welcome, Lord Thrall. How have you been?"

"Busy," the orc said. "You look well, princess. However, I am sorely disappointed in the manners of your visitors. They lack the common courtesy to even introduce themselves." He looked to them again. "I am Thrall, Warchief of the Horde."

Kira glanced back at them, hoping that they would respond. Tyrande stepped forwards once more.

"Welcome, Lord Thrall. It seems we are once again on the same side." She smiled slightly.

"Indeed," Thrall said. "I see that you have changed some, Lady. I never properly thanked you for your sacrifice."

"There is no need."

"You are too modest," the orc said. "You gave up eternal life. There are many who would not even consider such a thing."

"To preserve their existence, all would," said Tyrande, but her smile grew a little wider.

Thrall nodded, and then looked up to Cairne, who stood by his side and was gazing up into the stained glass window. "Old friend, perhaps you might demonstrate some courtesy as well."

Cairne shook the room with a rasping chuckle. "Very well. I am Cairne Bloodhoof. We are here for peace; now let us make it, or I shall leave forever. I must confess, I did not think it would be so hard as this, to face my old enemies. But let us cast whatever it is that binds us from speaking beneath the bridge, or under the bed, for now. Here is not the place to nurture old grudges. With that said, I am quite curious: what are those hammers you cherish forged of, great King of the Dwarves?"

Magni glanced down at one hammer, for a moment, and frowned. Then he met the tauren's eyes. "Thorium. Unfortunately, I came into quite a quantity of it several years ago, and could not resist."

"They are beautifully forged." Cairne looked to Thrall. "Rather like your Doomhammer, my friend. But I would go so far to say that they even appear greater—but then again, I am no blacksmith."

"Nor I," said Thrall. "But I trust your keen eye." He looked to Magni. "What would you say?"

"I would say I would love a chance to see it up close, but I can gather now is not the time," Magni said. He seemed no longer so tense, and the grief lines had faded to normality. "But may I see it later?"

"I see no reason why not," Thrall said.

"Thank ye, Warchief."

With this exchange, Kira's heart beat a little faster, but for another reason entirely. She looked up at Cairne, and found the old tauren looking at her. He winked, and she smiled beautifully.

"So you're the one that trained Naruto a bit, huh?" Tsunade's voice wafted from her chair. She faced Thrall directly, and caught his attention. He nodded.

"Yes. From your knowledge of him, I would hazard that you are the mysterious new addition to this alliance. You certainly carry yourself like the boy does. I am Thrall."

"And I'm Tsunade,' she said. "A pleasure, I suppose."

"Quite," Thrall said, frowning a little at her smile. It reminded him of someone's, but he could not remember whose. Cairne, after introducing himself as well, turned to Gaara.

"And who are you, young one?"

"Sabaku no Gaara, Godaime Kazekage of Sungakure," the young man responded.

"Another addition to this merry band of…" Cairne chuckled, "misfits?"

"A possible one."

"Ah."

Kira turned to her master. "They seem to be getting along, don't you think?"

"You'll find that matters of political discussion and small talk are very different things. The High Chieftain is simply wise enough to help break the ice, and ease tensions before the real work begins. He has no wish to fight in such a way." Benedictus glanced at her. "I know it is difficult, but please try to reserve yourself in this situation—you cannot let your emotions govern you. You want to appear a queen, not a child."

Kira looked away, chastened. "Sorry."

A moment later, the trumpets sounded one last time, and everyone turned towards the door, expectantly. Kira's heart began to beat louder; this was the portion she had feared the most. Sylvanas could be arguably the most dangerous addition to the group, for she was more unpredictable than any of the others. Kira never knew what she was thinking; that was a privilege only Naruto seemed to have.

When the messenger came forwards to announce the name, he appeared more confused than ever before, and tentatively, throwing many glances at Benedictus, announced not one, but two names.

"Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, the Dark Lady, Queen of the Banshee and Forsaken, and former Ranger-General of the Alliance," here he paused, and gulped in fear, casting one more glance at Benedictus, and then said, "and Lor'themar Theron, Acting ruler of the Sin'dorei, Regent Lord of Quel'thalas, and Protector of the Sunwell."

Lady Sylvanas strode into the room, beside a tall, gloriously decorated creature. He had hair as brilliant as sunshine done up in a topknot, eyes hard like emeralds, and was cloaked in a cape of woven blood, which rippled as he walked. With his head held high, he stared emotionlessly at the shocked, silent faces of the other leaders. Kira stared at the tall elf—for there was no doubt he was one—before walking forwards.

"Lady Sylvanas," she said, regally. "I'm glad you have come. Who is your companion?"

"_You sound more like a queen every time I see you," _the Dark Lady said. "_But it remains to be seen if you are. And did you not hear the announcement? He is the guest that I have brought."_

"Oh?" Kira said, in the same tone. "I thought that would have been your entourage. But why is he here?"

"_Perhaps you should ask him directly."_

Kira looked at the elf, Lor'themar, and bowed. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Regent Lor'themar. But may I ask, why are you here?"

He looked at her, his expression unchanging. He did not answer her at first, and merely looked into her eyes; she did not flinch away, for her part. This elf seemed quite like Sylvanas, and showing any sort of weakness before her would not do, especially in this situation.

"_To partake,"_ he said, softly, melodiously, "_of the infinite power that you have gathered, dear Princess. Lady Sylvanas did not think…"_ he glanced at her, "_that you would mind."_

"But," Tyrande said, stepping forwards, "she should have thought that others might. I do not particularly wish to ally with someone who has ties with the Burning Legion."

"_That is a lie,"_ Lor'themar said, simply. "_Please do not spread such tainting rumors."_

Kira glanced between the two elves, eyes wide. "What do you mean, Lady Tyrande?"

"That is a grave accusation," Benedictus said, finally coming forwards. "One that shall be discussed in great detail, I assure you. But let us begin as we intended to. There is no reason to debate as we are now."

"_As we are now? How so?"_ Sylvanas asked. She smirked at the old man, who hid his shudder of revulsion.

"Standing, Lady Sylvanas. Not all of us enjoy the benefits of prolonged youth. Let us sit and begin, and bring about this topic formally." He looked to one of the guards. "Grab an extra chair, my friend, will you?"

As they began to slide into their seats, Tsunade remained standing, looking at Sylvanas. The keen-eyed former Ranger caught this, and stared back, smiling terribly. "_I do not believe we have met. But your arrogant countenance and strange dress, and the symbol on the headband of your follower suggest to me that you are of that annoying brat's world."_ At this, Tsunade smirked. "_So I am correct?"_ Sylvanas asked.

"Quite. You must be the extremely old woman he keeps talking about. A pleasure, I'm sure." Tsunade sat down again, leaving Sylvanas half-shocked at her audacity, and half-appalled that someone who hid her wrinkles behind _chakra_ had called _her_ old.

* * *

Finally, when they had all seated, each facing one another across the massive circular table, Benedictus glanced at Kira, who stood. Her back to the stained glass window depicting her father, she took a deep breath, and began the inevitable plunge into probably the most important day of her life. A day she knew would not be soon over, nor would she ever forget. Before she started, she looked at the placid faces around her, and wondered how long they would remain like that. She took another breath, shuddering slightly.

"There are many things I have called you here for today to discuss, all of which I will inevitably bring up. But before that, I'd like to thank all of you for coming." She took another breath. "I am young, and have not been in this world for long. I have not experienced much of what you all have, and I probably never will. I recognize too, that some of you may be sitting across from those that you once hated, whose people fought with yours, who may be responsible for many things that you believe wrong with your countries." She faltered a little, and glanced around. Nobody showed a reaction, so she continued as best she could.

"But I also recognize that you would not have even bothered to come, unless you desired what this alliance had always, and always will advocate—peace. Peace for this world and its people, which before has only been a dream. And peace, also, for other worlds," she looked to Tsunade and Sakura, but thought of Naruto. "Worlds that are either far away, or very close, and whose people may not be so different from our own, in any aspect. But today, I have called you here to present to you the entirety of what I hope to accomplish with this alliance; which even after this has all been done, I hope we can remain together to continue this peace for as long as possible. I know to many of you this seems a naïve and pointless venture—that undoubtedly, at some point in our future history, more conflict will arise between us.

"But I do not believe this. I believe that we can instill in our peoples a will to cooperate; which just as hatred was fostered over so many years of violence, peace too can be nurtured, so that after many generations, our people will no longer have reason for the distrust that now separates them. I am going to continue hoping this, and I hope that you will as well. I once again thank you for your attendance. It will not be a waste of your time, I assure you." She stood up straighter and cleared her throat.

"I will not waste any more of your time with thanking you. I would like to present to you with the first plan for the future of this alliance," then Benedictus caught her attention with a slight nod, and she said, "But before that can happen, we shall perhaps address the issue that has since arisen." She looked, then, to Sylvanas and Lor'themar, who sat directly across from her. Sylvanas presented one of her languid smiles, but Lor'themar remained of blank, solemn countenance. "Lord Regent Lor'themar, would you please explain to me the principle reason for why you wish to join this alliance."

The blood elf stood at once, sliding from his chair like a living shroud. "_If it pleases you, young princess._"

Sylvanas interrupted. "_Before you begin, Lor'themar, perhaps the young princess might call the other unknowns to speak up._" She looked at Tsunade and Gaara. "_I would like to hear their reasons as well."_

Tsunade sighed, and stood up. "I suppose I should. It is however, exceedingly simple. I am here because I have been paid to. Lady Kira has offered her services to enlist the majority of my shinobi in her plan to help this world of yours."

"_I see,"_ said Sylvanas, her smile unchanging. "_So we are to trust those who are governed by money? Mercenaries are difficult to place trust in—how do we know you are not to sell your services to another bidder, should they arise? And indeed, there are far more valuable things than gold that can be offered."_

"The Leaf has never once gone against its word. All contracts are strictly binding, and until they have been completed, we do not accept the payment. Nor are we so greedy as to accept services from another source, once we have pledged to another. You may question this, but I assure you it is true. Nor are we greedy enough to accept any other form of payment. That is not how our system works, Lady Sylvanas."

"_Interesting,"_ the Dark Lady said, leaning back in her chair. "_Many humans have said the same in the past. Indeed, some of our enemies were as righteous in the beginning as you claim to be. You have never faced a darkness as great as the one we now do."_

"Perhaps," said Tsunade, "but my shinobi would not place their trust in a dictator, should I ever become one. If I go against the very laws of humanity, they will stop me, and anyone else. They have remarkable free will."

"_What is free can easily be captured."_

"Only for those who aren't willing to fight, and I assure you, Lady Sylvanas, that is not the case with my people. Think of us as your tools, if you must; as long as you wield us deftly, then we cannot harm you."

"_I see,"_ Sylvanas said. "_And what of the young, red-haired one?"_

Tsunade looked over to Gaara, who slowly rose from his chair. "I am Sabaku no Gaara, Godaime Kazekage of Sunagakure. I am here as nothing more than an observer. I am here only to be convinced that this is a worthwhile venture, so that I might take it back to my people and convince them. I believe that from what I have seen so far, there is much for my people to learn from yours—and perhaps vice versa." He bowed to everyone. "I can say no more. Is this agreeable to the Lady?"

Sylvanas went silent, and her face closed a little. The smile dropped off her face, but she nodded, and she then turned back to Kira, who was trying very hard to keep her composure, nervous as she was. Lor'themar was still standing, and had been patiently waiting for Sylvanas to stop.

"_Forgive us, young princess. Lor'themar, you may continue."_

The blood elf nodded. "_As I said before—I am here to harness the immense power this alliance presents for my people. Lady Sylvanas informed me, once we made contact, of what this alliance could accomplish for my people. My people are in dire need of aid, you see; something that I believe this members of this alliance could aid us with—of course, in turn for our own cooperation._"

"But for the risk of suffering betrayal and the hands of your true masters, Lord Regent, can you say this is a worthwhile agreement to us?" said Tyrande, standing just on Benedictus' right side. Her eyes were narrow.

"_I know not what you mean, High Priestess."_

"You know very well. Your people—they call themselves the _Sin'dorei_, do they not?"

"_Indeed."_

"And are not the _Sin'dorei_, the last remnants of the kingdom of Quel'thalas, led by the one called Kael'thalas Sunstrider?" Lor'themar nodded again. "And is not Kael'thalas Sunstrider allied with Illidan Stormrage…who in turn, served the Burning Legion?"

Brows knitted in confusion around the table. Thrall watched everyone's reactions keenly; he knew of Illidan Stormrage, but had never encountered him in battle. The Warchief looked at Tyrande and Lor'themar, staring at each other from across the room. He had never seen a more opposite pair—even their skins opposed.

Lor'themar nodded, expressionless. "_You are correct, or at least partly. Prince Kael'thalas once served Illidan Stormrage as his ally; but no longer. Prince Kael'thalas, however, can find no way to return from where he now exists—the fallen world of Outland. That is the principal reason for joining this alliance: to retrieve our brethren and Kael'thalas from Outland, or join them there, to battle against Illidan and his forces of the Burning Legion."_

"How do we know you are not lying? And do you not practice more forbidden techniques than anyone here?"

"_And how do we know that you are not simply putting your personal beliefs before those of your country? Your history with Illidan Stormrage is not unknown. You must hate him."_ Though it appeared a jibe, his face nor his words reflected that. He remained completely emotionless. "_And yes, we do use forbidden jutsu. But that is only because we are able to without many adverse affects. Forbidden jutsu are forbidden primarily due to their large chakra consumption. Our power lets us around that."_

"That is not the topic at hand." Benedictus rose. "Settle down. Lor'themar, what do you have to offer, other than your military aid?"

"_Volumes and scrolls of power that could be of great use to your soldiers, Archbishop. Many materials with which to build engines of war, create fantastic panacea, and prevent the deaths of countless innocents with new security systems. There is much we can give, and only a little we ask. Help us reunite with our displaced brethren, and help us discover a cure for our affliction."_

"Affliction?" Thrall asked.

"_There was a power we called the Sunwell, which granted us great power, Warchief. But in its absence, we have found that we cannot remain sane without its energies. Its power remains within us at all times, but with each use of it, a toll is exacted on our mind, something that we can only stem by draining the energies of other creatures. We desire freedom from this awful addiction, you see. We are sure that collaboration between our peoples can bring this."_

Thrall slowly nodded. "That is…difficult. I know that my people have experienced something similar."

"_All the better for us to ally. There is much we can share."_ He finally smiled. It framed his face beautifully, like a piece of fine jewelry. Kira wondered how much of what he said was true. Looking at Benedictus, she couldn't say, other than that her master most certainly saw something wrong with the elf's plea.

"Your plea is indeed admirable, and we can no doubt use your help," said Benedictus. "What else does anyone have to say on the subject?"

"Lord Regent, mon," said Vol'jin. "What promise can ye make dat your warriors not…adversely affected, by dis affliction? Would dey be a liability?"

"_No. We do not allow any in the service unless they have ample control of themselves. We have devised many mental techniques for reigning the side-effects of the Sunwell's power."_

"I wonder if that's true," Fandral rumbled. "Can your willpower win out, when you have conceded to this addiction for thousands of years? Your kind ended up creating it due to its greed, blood elf."

"_From what I have heard, Archdruid, it matters not to you. Your kind are not even intending to fight, only aid in other means."_ Lor'themar tilted his head. "_Is that not so?"_

Fandral scowled even greater than before. "It is indeed, but you did not answer the question."

"_The belief that after generations, we can change for the better, is exactly what this alliance is founded upon, or so the young princess tells us. Please give us the benefit of the doubt, until you have seen for yourself."_

"I am curious," rasped Cairne Bloodhoof. "Where have you been for these long years? We have heard nothing from you during all the last war, before it ended due to our many individual problems."

"_Ridding ourselves of a Scourge problem,"_ said Lor'themar. "_Led by a traitor to our kind. We have rebuilt, and are now ready to enter into this alliance."_

"All in all," said Benedictus, "you seem to be a perfect candidate, Lord Regent." He looked around again. Vol'jin, Cairne and Thrall were whispering to each other, as were Magni, Mekkatorque and Tyrande. Fandral was frowning, but looking nowhere in particular. "If anyone does not have anything else to say, we could have a vote. For all those in favor of the _Sin'dorei_ entering the New Alliance, raise your right hand."

Thrall, Vol'jin, Cairne and Sylvanas, all raised their hands. Benedictus swept around to the others, and then said, "To all those opposed, raise your left."

Magni, Mekkatorque, Fandral and Tyrande did so. Benedictus frowned. "Some did not vote. Lady Tsunade?"

The apparently young woman shrugged. "I don't feel we have a say in this, either way. We are mercenaries, and it isn't our place to contest who or who does not enter this alliance. We will work with them regardless."

Benedictus nodded, and then turned to Kira. "I do not intend to vote. But Princess Kira, what is your decision?"

"I…" but then Kira faltered. She stared at a spot on the desk in front of her, her brows knit and her eyes closed. She honestly did not know what to do. There was something so profoundly wrong about Lor'themar that she did not know whether to trust him or not. At the same time, she trusted that each of the leaders knew what they were doing in their decision. Tyrande knew most about these people, especially their mysterious leader, Kael'thalas. But Lor'themar would never be able to hide from Thrall's insight and Cairne's wisdom. They either trusted him, or wished to know more about him—and only through the alliance did that seem remotely possible. She chewed her lip, one more time, and then spoke.

"I…will vote for the addition." She raised her right hand. "At this point, I think we need all the aid we can get. But I want a promise from the Lord Regent."

"_Anything, young princess."_

"Don't betray our trust." She nodded, and offered the rigid blood elf a smile. "And don't call me 'young princess.'"

Lor'themar smiled back, but it was not warm. "_Of course, Princess Kira."_

Benedictus glanced out the windows, where the sun was no longer so bright. "Perhaps we should adjourn for the day. There is much that needs to be discussed. We shall continue tomorrow?"

"Yes," said Kira, sighing. "Of course. Thank you all for coming."

They rose to leave, and Kira immediately sought Tyrande's eyes, as she and Fandral moved towards the door. When she caught it, Tyrande affixed her with a powerful stare. Kira felt her heart plummet, and her breathing stop. She had never seen a look like that in Tyrande's kind eyes.

You just made a terrible mistake, they said to her.

_A mistake that will cost you dearly._

* * *

Tsuwabuki padded through the gates into Stormwind Castle. Her mind remained on edge, and no amount of running or hunting changed that. The forest was just as disturbed that day, as it had been the previous. Only now it seemed worse, and the animals seemed less fearful, and more ferocious. Ever one of her prey had attempted to attack her before she had killed them, from the rabbits to the squirrels. It was wrong. Prey was not supposed to fight predator—not like this, in nature.

It had been a beautiful, sunny day, and remained so until the sun set upon a clear sky, revealing the thousands of stars that its light had shrouded them behind. The air was crisp, which made her nose twitch, but there was no wind. But the day done, Tsuwabuki returned to the castle, and as soon as she entered, made a beeline for the great hall, where Kira's scent was still fresh. She found the girl sitting at the table, her chin resting on the hard wood. She padded up, nudging her arm, and looking expectantly up.

"Oh," Kira mumbled, "hello Tsuwabuki. How was your day?" Her voice was soft and distant, and so the fox knew that there was something wrong. She placed her muzzle against the girl's side, making Kira smile a little and begin to stroke the fox's head. Tsuwabuki felt Kira relax a bit into her, and she wondered what had taken place that day to have made the girl so obviously depressed. Had the meeting not gone well?

Kira glanced slowly up, to her father's figure, which gazed down on everything in the hall. She felt tears sting her eyes. How stupid could she be? She had made a mistake, using the very reasons that Sylvanas had at first been reluctant to join. She had been too stupid, and naïve! She had just done something that may cost her a fatal error in the future.

She wanted to think what she had done was correct. But Tyrande's look, and the very circumstances of the alliance with the blood elves made her think otherwise. How could she be that stupid? She should have delayed it a bit, maybe talked to Benedictus and some of the others in private before making her decision. How impulsive, stupid, common could she be? No wonder Tyrande was angry with her. And though Benedictus had not expressed it—no wonder he was disappointed. No matter how she tried to reason—that Thrall and the others had used an impartial judgment to decide their positions, and that Lor'themar was being truthful, it didn't help. She had been too impulsive, too moronic, to realize her mistake until it was too late.

Father, she thought, looking up at the image. Can you help me? What would you do? How would you rectify this situation?

The image didn't speak. Her father was dead, making her eyes swell with tears again.

What had she done?

Then Tsuwabuki's ears pricked up, and she turned swiftly, jerking from Kira's slight grasp, to see Sakura, just as she entered the room. Kira turned at the sound as well, frowning.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, softly.

Sakura glanced around. "I was on patrol. Tsunade-shishou said that I wasn't exempt from duty even while here. What are you doing here?"

Kira turned back to the desk. "Thinking."

"About today, I suppose?"

"What else?" Kira's voice became slightly bitter. Sakura walked further into the room, frowning. She didn't know what to say. Evidently, Kira believed something had gone wrong, whereas Sakura thought it had gone quite well.

"What's wrong? Today wasn't that bad."

"It was. You just wouldn't understand."

At this, Sakura arched an eyebrow, disliking the girl's tone immediately. It was for this reason that she didn't like talking with Kira. Whether consciously or not, she always assumed that Sakura was from such a low level of society or personage that she would never be able to understand. Kira was indeed quite different from Sakura, but not so much that her situation was totally lost on the pink-haired shinobi. She didn't even attempt to try and explain, either. Throughout their infrequent, and generally bitter exchanges while Sakura had healed, Kira had never once bothered to explain to Sakura her situation, and had always adopted a tone of superiority when Sakura had given her opinion. If it wasn't for her first meeting with the girl—and the genuine equality she had shown to Naruto—she would have just assumed it was Kira's personality.

What she had told Ino was correct. She had no idea how to act around the princess. Kira seemed to automatically assume herself better, but just around Sakura. But Sakura had had enough.

"Why not?"

Kira glanced at her. "What?"

"Why wouldn't I understand?" Sakura had stalked up to the table, glaring down at Kira.

"I'm not in the mood," Kira muttered, turning away again. "It's just complicated."

"So why didn't you say that? You always seem to think I never understand. What's your problem, anyways?"

"I don't know what you mean," Kira said, instantly turning back, and meeting the emerald gaze. "What's yours?"

"My problem is that you always seem to assume yourself better than I am!"

"I think nothing of the sort," Kira said.

"Your tone lies, _hime_-sama. It's bothering me, quite a bit. I don't know how we got off on the wrong foot, but I want to know now. What is your problem with me? I don't understand it!" She was nearly shouting at this point, but she didn't care.

Kira stood hotly, abandoning her queenly disposition for something far more suiting her age. "How can I, either? You can't blame me for this! From the very moment we met, you've seemed to disagree with everything I say! Whether it's medical knowledge, or some historical debate, or even what Naruto's been doing, you always seem to find some fault in what I say, and argue against it!"

Sakura frowned, and fell into the trap Kira had set up. "No I don't!"

"See!"

"Well," Sakura snapped, "can you blame me? I needed to take you down a few notches, with that arrogant tone of yours. Just because you're a _princess_ doesn't mean you know everything!"

"I don't!"

"Exactly! So stop pretending you do! Everything you say you expect everyone to agree with you on!" She jabbed a finger at the girl. "No wonder you always have that other girl tagging along with you. She probably agrees with you on everything."

Kira's face burned. "No she doesn't! And I don't expect everyone to agree with me! Were you not at that the meeting today? Did you not see me make the final decision?"

"That's probably what you were in here all depressed about! Because not everyone agreed with you, you think you've failed, don't you? You think you've made a big mistake, before anything has even happened!"

The rising red of anger mixed with the red of embarrassment, and Kira shook a little from the combination. "Of course not! Why would I think that?"

"Oh, that's right. Since Naruto would've probably agreed with you, that's fine, right?"

"What? What does Naruto have to do with this?"

Sakura crossed her arms, her glare intensifying. "I'm actually surprised you didn't mention him today. He's all you seem to go on about."

"What are you talking about?" Kira nearly screamed. "Naruto is a friend, and I'm grateful to him! He's the one who essentially made this possible! Why shouldn't I mention him, from time to time? He's your teammate, and you hardly talk about him at all, or even want to! What is it with you? Out of sight, out of mind? Did you even think about him once when he was here? You always get annoyed when I start talking about him, which I do because he's on a very important and dangerous mission right now, which you should respect! You didn't even put up a fight when you were decided to stay here—did you not see the look on his face? Do you not care about him? Have you forgotten him?"

Sakura had taken a few steps back, struck dumb by her words. Because Kira didn't know what she was talking about, and because her final words had struck home an emotion she had recently begun to feel, especially with her recurring dreams of Sasuke.

'_Have you forgotten me, Sakura?'_

"I…of course not!" she spluttered. "I think about Naruto all the time, I just don't want to mention him every minute we're talking! Naruto isn't the center of the world, you know! And he can't do everything! You just expect him to, don't you?"

"What!"

"You're taking Naruto for granted. He's not always going to be here! And he's not perfect, either! He can't do everything you think he can, and he won't always be there for you! You have to learn to think of yourself! Just because he's done all of this for you, doesn't mean he's going to be there to save things all the time! He's succeeded all of the time, until now, but he's still human, yet you seem to think he's some knight-in-shining-armor who'll always be there to fight the worst enemies, and win over the hearts of everyone else, but he can fail, too!"

"I know that! But Naruto won't break his promise to me, that's not what he does!"

"So you think that he'll be immortal until he completes whatever he's done? You think he can't fail? He can! And he's not going to be here forever, to help you! This isn't his world, you know. This is yours, and Naruto's dream lie in ours! He can't become Hokage if he's left slaving away to you for the rest of his life!"

"I…!" But Kira couldn't say anything. As angry as she was, Sakura's words did find their way into her brain, and soon her heart. All at once she deflated, and took a step back. Her face drooped, hidden behind her golden hair, and she didn't say anything else, while Sakura fumed for a few more minutes, almost glad of her triumph. But soon her anger, too, disappeared, and they were left standing in perfect silence.

Moonlight lit the stained glass window, which sent its glow throughout the room. The different quality of light illuminated her father like a ghost, as if he was standing and watching Kira's back from heaven. She raised her head a little, and despite Sakura's best efforts, she spotted what Kira's eyes contained. She immediately looked away, not wanting to feel ashamed of her words. They had needed to be said. Even if she didn't truly believe some of them, and was even being hypocritical, they had needed to be said.

Kira opened her mouth to speak.

But another voice appeared.

"Be quiet, little friends. I am listening to him."

Sakura's eyes grew wide, and Kira whipped around. Across the table, seated in the very chair that Kira had sat in that afternoon, which was now turned to face the back of the hall, was the moonlit figure of a woman.

Sakura's hands balled into fists, and she stepped forwards. "Who is there?"

The woman didn't respond at first and just continued to sit and watch the window. Then she got up, slowly, her beautiful golden hair caressing her back, and turned to face the two girls. She wore a crimson dress, which clung to her figure, and exposed excessive cleavage. Her face was smooth and slightly tan, and familiar in a way. Her eyes were a clouded violet, like a purple cloth stained with blood.

"He says, '_Why are you here?'_ But isn't it obvious?" The woman's face broke into an almost childish smile, but it chilled both girls more than if she glared. "I'm here to look upon the ugliest window ever made. Disgusting, hmm?"

Her dress was stained, but the stain looked curiously like the emblem that had only twice graced the hall.

"And he also says, '_Why are you wearing that? What has happened to you?_'" she said.

The emblem of the Scarlet Crusade.

* * *

Naruto did not notice Hisari's condition until later in their second "day" of travel, since their infiltration of Tyr's Hand. She kept it mostly hidden, and so he did not notice it until upon glancing back once, he spotted that her eyes no longer glowed green. They were dull and hollow, and he then noticed she no longer carried herself with grace or the haughty pride of before. Her moments were slow and sluggish, and she was slunk forward, as if extremely tired. Her face was sickly pale, and only shined with a sheen of sweat. She looked ill, and dazed, but she never wavered from her path.

Naruto looked ahead to the others, who all seemed lost in their own thoughts. It was impossible to tell what Myrdraxxis was thinking as usual, though Fen seemed to have joined him in that endeavor. Yamato was constantly occupied with staring at their surroundings, hoping to catch some wind of their destination, The Light's Hope Chapel, which they would soon reach. Sai did too, but only to memorize the ugly, distorted forms that he would later paint.

Naruto glanced back at Hisari again. She didn't seem to notice his attention, and just stared forwards. Then her foot struck a branch, and she tripped, and fell.

And did not get up.

"Oi!" Naruto caught everyone else's attention, and ran back to her, turning her on to her back. Her eyes were half-closed, and she was mumbling something. Naruto glanced at Fen. "What's happening?"

"Dunno," Fen said, frowning. "This has never happened before." He glanced at Myrdraxxis, who shook his head.

"Oi! What's wrong?" Naruto shouted at Hisari, pulling her up close to his face, trying to get her eyes to focus on him. When they did, she stared at him for a long time. "What's wrong!" he shouted again.

"I have used…_it_ too much. _It_ must be replenished…"

"What?" Naruto shouted.

"Shit," Fen said. "She used too much of the Sunwell's power in her body. She relied on it too much."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that hasn't been replenishing it as needed. Her body runs off this stuff, just like ours does _chakra_. This stuff doesn't come back like _chakra_ does—she needs to convert _chakra_ into it. If she loses too much, she dies, but if left at a low level for too long, she succumbs to withdrawal symptoms—which can drive anybody quickly to insanity."

"But how much would she have needed to use for her to suffer like this?" Yamato muttered, looking at Fen.

"A lot, but this stuff is way easier to use than _chakra_, and that means way easier to misuse. You can exhaust it just by getting angry enough to push it out. That's why it rarely needs hand seals. And keep in mind she's been warding off undead the entire time she's been here, and hasn't taken the time to refill."

"So how do we make her better?" Naruto asked.

"Let's get her somewhere safe, first," Yamato said, suddenly glancing around. "It doesn't seem like we're going to be able to do much here."

Through the mists, the darkened forms were now getting closer—far closer than ever before. Their moans began to increase, and soon they could hear footsteps all about them, lumbering slowly towards them. They were all around them. Slowly coming, each moment, making Naruto's heart beat faster and faster.

He clenched his fists.

"Shit!"

* * *

Finally done. I'm really sorry about the wait, but I've had computer troubles (all of my own stupidity) and lots of work to do, which made it difficult to write. I hope this chapter makes up for it.

Since I hate disappointing you guys, and I know I'm not updating as fast anymore, would anyone like the idea of me starting a FFN forum? I have no idea how to do it, but if everyone likes the idea, I can look into it. I'd be able to keep you guys updated about the status of the chapter, so you can look forwards to it coming out sooner.

And also, because I know some of you are disappointed with my meeting (reunion?) between Thrall and Tsunade, I've decided to do a sequel to that omake from before.

I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, and this omake! See you soon, hopefully!

* * *

_**Omake—A Reunion?**_

Thrall met her eyes as soon as he entered the room. He stopped, stunned, unbelieving of the sight.

It was her!

She was standing right there, as rigid as he got every time he thought about her, staring at him with wide, beautiful honey-colored eyes, and red, full, gorgeous lips slightly parted in something like surprise. And though she was wearing considerably more than what she usually did, he could still imagine her, in all her glory, behind the green _gi_ and blue pants.

Tsunade gasped. The hulking, armored, green being that had just entered could not have been more handsome. She remembered him! Every bit of detail that she had imagined (far more frequently than was necessary) was there in startling reality. He was here! That beautiful, heavily muscled, curvy-tusked, blue-eyed _orc!_

They both stared at each other in silence from across the room. Neither noticed the others glancing at them in puzzlement. Thrall did not feel Cairne's hand in his shoulder, and then his forehead, or hear his constant questions of "What's wrong, old friend?" Neither did Tsunade feel Sakura's nudges, and ever increasingly harsh demands to wake up and introduce herself. Kira was looking between the two expectantly, wondering what on earth was going on.

"You…" Thrall finally said.

"You…" Tsunade finally said.

They both stared at each other for a moment. Then, in two blindingly fast movements, they met in the middle of the hall, in the most horrifying union of bodies that anybody had ever seen. Metal clashed against cloth, and two pairs of hands tore through both, until there was nothing left but flesh.

Like the scene of a crash, nobody could look away.

Cairne, in all his life, had never seen such a terrifying thing. It was only his age, however, that kept him from having a heart attack. He'd seen many terrible things. This was just the worst.

Mekkatorque fainted dead away.

Fandral had dropped his angry countenance, and had leaned forwards, his mouth open and drooling. Tyrande smacked him in the face automatically, which is the response all women have for perverts standing right next to them. She however, did not change the look of disgust—and interest—on her face.

Vol'jin tilted his head to the side, muttering, "I've nevah seen dat position."

Sakura promptly suffered an aneurysm. She would survive, and thankfully remember nothing of the day.

Gaara tilted his head to the side, his eye twitching. "It's…so angry."

"W-w-w-w-w-w-what is t-t-t-t-t-that?" Kira screamed.

"My dear girl," Benedictus said, sighing. "Must I give you that talk? Well…it all begins with the birds and the bees…"

Lee and Gai would later comment, nine months later, that the horror given birth to was conceived "in a fit of incredibly not-youthful passion, something we'd rather all forget about it."

* * *

Hope that was enjoyable!

General Grievous


	15. Chapter Capture

**Disclaimer: I've literally run out of funny disclaimers. I don't even know what I own anymore. But it's probably not Naruto or World of Warcraft, or at least Wikipedia occasionally tells me.**

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Benedictus awoke, truly afraid for the first time in many years.

He was awash in cold sweat, and his mind was still haunted by a lingering nightmare that wouldn't release its grip. And there was a feeling in his heart, which chilled him beyond everything he had ever experienced. Something was here in the castle, something familiar, and yet different. It was so agonizingly familiar that it frustrated him as much as terrified him. It was awful; a monstrous _chakra_ that felt a putrid swamp.

And yet it was familiar.

It was something nobody had thought of. Nobody had thought it was possible; but, then again, the dead did have a history of returning to life. He hurriedly pulled on his robe, and left his room, hobbling as fast as he could towards the awful feeling.

He wished it were a dream. He wished he would awake, but as he grew closer and closer, he knew it had to be true, no matter how inconceivable he had imagined. So true, that he stumbled and fell forward, and could not get up for a few minutes as his body shook with silent terror and his face flushed with grief. Had he been any younger, he would have shed tears, but those were long dried, and so he could only shake and sob, and wonder and worry.

Why now?

And why her?

* * *

"W-who are you?"

Kira's question was spoken only just above a whisper. She was looking at the woman, looking at her face as if she'd seen it somewhere before. She had. But she couldn't place it. The woman's hair was familiar, and her eyes were colored in a familiar way to someone she knew or once knew; but her sneer was not familiar, nor her posture, nor her clothing, nor the look in her eyes. Kira couldn't say for sure what the woman's eyes contained. It was different every time she blinked. Sadness, hatred, amusement, joy, disgust, despair, all those and more flitted within the hollow, violet orbs. Each of them seemed to morph her smile as well—it could be beautiful and sweet or mean and vicious without her so much as twitching.

"Who am I?" the woman said, as if appalled that the girl had to ask such a question. "Lady Demetria, of course."

Kira's eyes grew wide, and she stumbled back, struck dumb. Lady Demetria? The one who had ordered the death of her father? Here? Now? And why did she look so familiar, if he had never even heard of her until then, and had certainly never seen anything beyond the Scarlet Monastery? The woman then returned her gaze up, to the stained glass window, and clucked her tongue. "How disgusting a picture it is, don't you think? A man does not deserve to be elevated to such a position, hmm?" She shook her head and laughed a little. "Oh my, oh my." She swept around again, and looked at Kira, her eyes glinting. "I'd much rather you were there, child. You're quite beautiful."

When Kira didn't answer, she frowned. "No answer? How mean. You should answer those that address you, especially if it is praising. You should—"

"Who the hell are you?" Sakura suddenly snapped, stepping forwards. "Why are you here?" Tsuwabuki growled, rising up on her hackles, her long tail swishing violently back and forth.

The woman blinked, looking offended. Her face then contorted in an anger that looked almost petulant, and she cried, "How rude! Shut your mouth, shinobi girl, and let me finish."

Sakura opened her mouth, presumably to speak, but didn't. Her eyes suddenly grew wide, and she clutched her throat, making motions with her mouth, but not saying anything. She looked fearfully at Kira once, and then back to Lady Demetria, who was smiling in vicious triumph at the girl's distress. Tsuwabuki's growling had also stopped. The fox stood motionless, save for her eyes, which moved around wildly. Lady Demetria flicked her hair back, and returned her flowing gaze to Kira. "I do not like people who interrupt. She must be a poor listener, despite how cute she is. And I don't like dogs." She smiled nastily at Tsuwabuki. "Though this one has a pretty string attached to it. I wonder where it leads?" She made a scissors-like gesture with her hands.

Then, she walked towards Kira in sultry strides, holding herself upright, like a queen. Her violet eyes remained fixed on Kira, so she couldn't move or speak. She was both awed and terrified by this woman, who reminded her so much of somebody.

The woman broke her gaze, and looked at Sakura. "I came here on a whim. I enjoy the forest, but the city is boring and dirty, and the people disgusting beyond measure. Especially recently, there seem to be a lot of monsters plaguing this place, with their filthy customs and presences." She shook her head. "You're a very strange human."

"Who are you?" Kira asked again.

"Why do you keep saying that?" Lady Demetria asked, amused. "I have told you."

"Then you are the one that…killed my father?"

The woman glanced behind her, at the window again. "In a way, I suppose I did."

"Why?"

Lady Demetria turned back, frowning a moment and looking quite puzzled, and then showing Kira a smile full of purest joy and innocence.

"Well…I don't quite remember. I suppose…because I felt like it."

* * *

"Felt like it…?" Kira whispered. She was rigid, and stared at the woman with blank eyes.

"Oh indeed. I'm quite glad I did, as well. So much has happened since then…and I have enjoyed nearly every moment of it! It seems I had a bit of help, in the end, but my servant did do the deed. He described to me in the most wondrous detail—ah!" She clutched her breast, and pretended to swoon. "Amazing. Simply amazing."

Sakura stared at the woman in horror. She glanced at Kira, and became even more frightened. The girl's face became a blank canvas, as if her entire personality had been wiped from her. Having just been the target of Kira's most intense burst of anger, the contrast was striking, and terrifying.

"So…" Kira finally spoke. She began to breath quickly, her face beginning to color. Sakura for some reason felt a spike of relief.

Kira stared Demetria dead in the eye, her own glistening with tears.

"You killed my father on a whim!"

As quick as Kira's explosion, Lady Demetria acted by touching Kira on the face. Sakura would have gasped, but could make no sound, though she was visibly stunned by the woman's speed. Kira went rigid, and the anger melted into fear. Anyone's would, no matter how great, at the sight of Demetria's face, and her eyes.

"My dear girl…" she said slowly, caressing Kira's face. "I do not act on whims. I act on feelings. I would not kill you, for example," she stopped her finger on Kira's temple, and leaned forwards even more, until her lips were right against Kira's shivering white skin, "on a whim. It would take a powerful feeling to move me to that point." She planted a kiss, and then leaned to Kira's ear, and without whispering, said, "I just happen to have such feelings frequently. Far more frequently than any other."

Lady Demetria pulled away, and rounded on Sakura. "You're in a much better position for me than the others. I might take you."

Sakura stepped back, alarmed at the address, and readied herself to fight. Lady Demetria laughed, and shook her head in a cascade of gold. "I don't feel like fighting here. So put those away, little shinobi."

"Who are you?"

Lady Demetria once again turned, and looked at Kira, who had regained her anger and now trembled with it. "Are you stup—"

She stopped and turned suddenly. The doors burst open, and Benedictus swept into the room, along with Kylia. His wizened features were pained, and he didn't so much as stride as hobble in. He looked at Kira, and then Lady Demetria, and went rigid halfway between the door and Kira.

But Kylia did not follow, and stood by the door. She stood looking at the woman in confusion, and then a sudden look of recognition, and her face blossomed into a bright smile; then, half a second later, it shattered instantly into pure horror. She stumbled back afraid, unable to speak or cry, and looking as if she were suffocating. For his part, Benedictus stood firmly, but could not ward off his own despair from his voice or face.

"Demi…" he whispered.

And it hit Kira.

Her eyes. Her hair. Her face. Her voice, grace, and poise; even her smell, like roses. It all was she. She knew this woman.

Demi Wrynn.

Her mother.

It struck her with Tsunadean force, and made Kira stumble as Kylia had. She felt a crushing weight on her chest, and then her head, and she felt as if she was going to faint. She couldn't keep her eyes off Lady Demetria's—or Demi's—eyes, which she had seen so many times in the mirror—the eyes she had inherited.

'_She had eyes that I'd always admired. So serene that each one seemed like heaven.' _Her father had told her that so often. He had worshipped those eyes. Loved them with every bit of himself, until the day he had died, no doubt; seen them every day since her death.

She'd been a child of four when she had last seen her mother. After months of waiting, one day her father had come to her, that very morning smiling and telling her that she'd be back soon, that night telling her in the softest voice a man like him could muster, merely minutes from tears himself.

"_I'm so sorry, Kira. She won't come back. She's dead."_

Dead.

So why was she here?

Why was she standing and smirking at her, scaring Kylia out of her wits and making Benedictus show every weakness in his old body all at once? How could she be here? How could she be covered in that bloody imprint—the mark of the Crusade, the exact opposite of everything she should have stood for? What was going on?

"I have no idea what you are talking about. I am Lady Demetria," she said, tilting her head to the side as she inspected the new arrivals. "You must be Archbishop Benedictus. How delightful—I've been waiting for you."

The old man stared at her. "Have you? Why?"

"To see the face of the man that my servant despises. That's all. You're quite a bit older than I thought you might be." She grinned like a naughty child, and turned almost as if performing a pirouette, to face Sakura again. She suddenly appeared right next to the girl, who jumped back, and by reflex, threw a punch at Lady Demetria.

The woman laughed and avoided it, grabbing the girl roughly by the arm. Somehow it went limp in her grasp, becoming just a leathery sack of bones. Sakura made a pained look, and pulled away enough to kick at the woman's knee. Demetria again avoided it, letting it crash into the ground with explosive power, sending a shockwave through the entire room and likely awakening the whole castle. Tsuwabuki's statuesque form toppled onto her side, her eyes quivering from the vibration. Dislodging her foot from the ruined floor, Sakura turned and found herself facing Lady Demetria's curious and annoyed face—it was not a mixture between the two, but she seemed to vacillate between both emotions in rapid succession.

"Amazing power," she said. "Your usefulness has increased tenfold. I cannot wait to get you back."

Sakura made a snarling face, and tried to speak. Demetria, amused, snapped her fingers, and Sakura found that she could once again make sounds. She spat a string of unladylike curses at the woman, who just laughed, and spun in her flighty way again, to face Kira and Benedictus. Sakura glanced at her arm, and placed a healing hand on it. But feeling did not return.

Benedictus walked slowly forwards, shielding Kira from the woman's gaze, and the woman from Kira's.

"I do not know why you have come here," he said. "I do not know why you have chosen that form, monster. But whatever it is, you shall not leave here tonight."

"Big words, old man," Demetria said, smiling. "And amusing as well. But I shall be leaving, whether you like it or not. But I'm angry," and here her eyes glowed like embers, and her smile became a snarl, "that you do not seem to find my body pleasing. I take great pride in it," she smiled, and grabbed her breasts. "Especially these."

"Why have you come?"

"To have a bit of fun, and do something that needs to be done," she said. "And perhaps to teach your little group a lesson. In the near future, at least."

Benedictus rarely lost his temper, but at this point, seeing someone use his greatest pupil's form and voice in such a disgusting way, he could no longer take it. "Remove yourself from that form, you disgusting wretch!" he roared. He clasped his hands together but once, and reared back, sucking in a huge breath. He released from it a maelstrom of golden flames, which lit the room as bright as day.

'_Holy Flash'_

Sakura immediately bolted, grabbing Tsuwabuki's solid form, as the flames swept over Demetria, engulfing her in a huge, swirling dome of golden fire. Curiously, she felt no heat from them, only a nearly blinding light. Yet the fire quickly consumed the rest of the table, until there was nothing left, not even ashes. Benedictus stood firm, his eyes casting clear hatred upon the blaze. The firelight made him look like a demon, his face thin and grim, but his eyes glowing.

Kira looked at Benedictus' back in a daze. She couldn't believe what was happening. Could he be right? Could Lady Demetria just be playing a trick on them? If she was a priestess, it would easy to do such a thing. So had she just come in that form, to trick them, to put them off guard? She felt anger rising in her again, ashamed that she had believed such an obvious trick. This woman wasn't her mother. It couldn't be. Her mother had died long ago, defending the world against the Scourge. She was with her father now.

She stepped forwards, making for Benedictus' side.

"Stop."

She did, looking at him. "What?"

"Stay there, Kira."

"Afraid she might be harmed, old man?"

Kira went still, as the flames died away, and Lady Demetria stood, perfectly unharmed. Black, tar-like sludge dribbled from her body, into a pool at her feet, which never seemed to get any larger. It sunk into the shadows on the floor, and Kira realized that it had been the shadows—somehow leaping to protect her form. Demetria was smiling and laughing, but it looked more like she was snarling and growling. She whipped her head back, and ran a hand through her hair, licking her lips.

"It will take more than that," she said.

Indeed, Sakura thought. She appeared, and drilled her fist into the woman's kidneys, hurtling her across the room and into the wall. Demetria's eyes bulged, and blood exploded from her mouth, showering the ground and dribbling down her neck and over her breasts. Demetria was silent for a moment, hacking and spluttering, before she began to snarl.

"You whore," she said, wiping her chin.

"Takes one to know one," Sakura muttered, breathless. She flexed her arms, the one Demetria had immobilized still feeling stiff. It would be fine in a moment, however. She looked over at Tsuwabuki, who was slowly rising, and beginning to growl again.

Demetria coughed, vomiting more blood onto the ground, before standing up. Kira couldn't look at the image of her mother, stained all in red like that. But once again, Benedictus shielded the scene from her eyes, as if sensing her thoughts. He probably had been, too.

"I'll have to end this, then, hmm?" Demetria said, coldly. "You're in for a real treat, shinobi girl, when we return, I'll give you that."

Return? Sakura thought.

"You too, little princess." Demetria smiled at Kira, and even though she couldn't see it, Kira backed away.

The pool of shadow leapt up around Demetria, now mixed with blood and covered her like a skin, conforming to every feature of her body, until she was nothing but a black outline with a pair of intense violet eyes.

'_Shadowform'_

Her speed was as great as before, and now her body blended into the darkness. Sakura thrust up her hands in defense when the woman charged, but she could not see Demetria's fist—her entire body had blended into one form, a solid mass of shadow, so that when Demetria struck, Sakura was unable to block. It slammed into her stomach, sending something akin to an electric shock through her, and her entire body suddenly went limp. She hit the ground with a painful yelp, not numb, but still unable to move. A second blow, this one to her head, knocked her senseless, but unconscious. It sent waves of pain through her head, and down into her body—far more than she should have felt. Two more kicks slammed into her stomach, and she heard Demetria's vicious laughing from above. Tears came to her eyes, as she tried to move, tried to escape the pain.

Tsuwabuki, stumbling from the stiffness in her limbs, bounded across the room and enclosed her teeth around the woman's shoulder. Demetria gasped in pain as the fox viciously tore outwards; but she laughed when Tsuwabuki, puzzled, did not taste blood. In fact, she tasted nothing at all, and suddenly found her mouth empty. Demetria seemed to fade from existence, and the portion that Tsuwabuki had bitten reformed. She then swept forward, and kicked Tsuwabuki in the stomach, but the fox avoided it and bit her again. Yet still she tasted nothing, having bitten only a bit of the shadowy exterior of her enemy.

Benedictus swept his hands together again, and after a few seals, clapped them together. A bright burst of light erupted from his body, illuminating the room once more, and ripping the shadowy cloak from Demetria's form. She whirled, abandoning Tsuwabuki with a burst of speed, and then attempted to kick Benedictus. But the old man sneered, and her kick was deflected by a burst of golden light, which surrounded Benedictus in a bubble.

A ring of golden _chakra_ then appeared around Benedictus' arm, and he thrust it forward.

'_Light's Halo'_

Demetria laughed, summoning a golden shield all her own. But the ring, to her shock, slammed through the bubble, shattering it, and smashing into her gut. There was a brilliant flash, and golden light streamed from inside the halo, ejected Demetria off her feet and slamming her through the wall below the stained glass window. The castle shook once more, which Benedictus hoped was for the final time. Why wasn't anyone coming?

Demetria screamed awfully, ripping herself from the rubble, her stomach covered in blood and her dress nearly torn to shreds. Benedictus could not imagine the pain she was feeling, seeing the amount of blood dribbling onto the floor. She writhed and twitched, and glared at him with an ever increasing menagerie of emotions—amusement, fury, hate, pleasure, pain, and despair, her eyes changing with every blink. She ran forwards again, more an animal now than a priestess.

Tsuwabuki ran to meet her. Sucking in a huge breath, the fox discharged a howling blast of air pressure at the charging woman. She avoided it with a surprisingly limber leap, and viciously slapped the fox's muzzle when she landed and Tsuwabuki attempted to bite her. Tsuwabuki dropped, paralyzed, feeling the shock of something that was not pain, feeling something filthy enter her body.

'_Holy Strike'_

Blades made of dazzling yellow light shot from Benedictus' fingers, slicing into Demetria's form. But she didn't seem to care, laughing even when the blades slammed into her chest and neck—which wasn't possible. Her form then melted away, into air, stunning the old man.

An illusion of that magnitude, he thought—how did she create it so swiftly? Benedictus glanced frantically in every direction. Kira stood stock still behind him, and Kylia now stood by her, daggers drawn, breathing heavily with fear. Sakura laid on the ground near the ruins of the table, limp as death, her eyes wide open and full of pain. Tsuwabuki whimpered.

"Slow, old man."

Benedictus felt a jab in his side. It was like a spark of electricity, but he felt it was far more sinister. He half-turned, and saw Demetria walk slowly away. He tried to move towards her, but found himself unable to. His body wouldn't move.

"I won't kill you, old man," she said. "Don't ask me why, girl," she added, grinning at Kira, who stared at her in horror from behind Kylia. "I just don't feel like it, today. But I'll treat you to a nice show, instead." She raised a hand, and snapped her fingers.

Four simultaneous cracks shredded the silence, and Benedictus felt more pain that he had ever imagined. Both of his legs and arms snapped in two, and he felt into a heap on the ground, roaring in agony.

Kira screamed, and made to run for him. Kylia swung at Demetria with her blades, but the woman dodged and slapped her in the side of the head, sending her lifeless to the ground. Demetria snagged Kira by the shoulder, and pulled her around, and close, as if embracing her.

Kira could feel the sticky blood on her back, and the sweet smell of Demetria's breath. The woman leaned in close, and whispered to her.

"You have no idea, little princess, what's in store for you."

The world vanished before her, and for a moment, all Kira could see was red.

Whatever happened next, she didn't remember.

* * *

When they became visible, Naruto swore he had walked into one of his childhood nightmares.

They were more than what he had expected. They were not simply rotting cadavers: stinking of decay and rot; their innards half-eaten and spilling from their stomachs dragging beneath their feet and leaving a trail of slimy gore in their wakes; their mouths open and gaping and moaning endlessly and terribly; their hands covered in layers of blood from the countless victims they had torn apart; shambling forwards with as much purpose as a hungry wolf; and what remained of their eyes vacant, staring, and dead.

They were much more than that.

Their movements were jerky, but unnaturally swift, and they slouched instead of remaining rigid as death. They made all manner of sounds other than moans—gnashing their teeth, clicking their huge, bony talons, gurgling up blood mixed with green, and sometimes far more. Some wore the tattered remnants of their last garb, and others were completely naked, and still others had not even their naked flesh, and wore only muscle and bone.

But it was their eyes that most differed.

Not simply vacant and pure white, they were like mirrors, and showed to Naruto himself, distorted by hate and contagion. He saw himself moaning and snarling in their eyes, against the background of putrid brown fog.

He almost screamed. But Yamato shook him out of it, grabbing him roughly by the shoulder.

"Focus!" he snapped. "We need to keep them off!"

Naruto shook his head roughly, not thinking. He crouched low, making a hand seal.

'_Kage Bunshin no jutsu'_

A wall of Naruto clones appeared around them, blocking the advance of the walking horrors. They pushed the Scourge back with forceful shoves, while two more gathered up Hisari. Yamato glanced at Fen.

"Which way?"

Fen pointed to his left, into the fog. Yamato nodded, and made a few seals. Coiling vines exploded from the earth, hurtling a group of Scourge into the air, and forming a large pathway for them to rush through. They moved just in time, for the Scourge began to react to their resistance. They abandoned their slow, shambling motions and grew fast and furious. They swiped at the clones, dispelling them in great bursts with their misshapen claws, tearing at imaginary flesh with everything the plague had given them for their need to consume. They spilled into the wooden pathway that Yamato had created, from both sides.

Ahead, Naruto drew his short sword, and cut the first creature that met him in two. It felt so easy—the blade traveled through the flesh as easily as it would air, splattering green blood across the ground and makeshift walls. His clones hung back, and Naruto cut his way through two more Scourge, each one as easy as the first. They died still reaching for him, making clawing motions at his body as they fell, more or less decapitated. But more appeared, flooding the end of the pathway, fighting each other to get through first.

Sai ran beside Naruto, drawing a kunai and throwing it at the crowd of Scourge. It struck one in the face, and the explosive note attached immediately activated, blowing clear the end of the path. They reached the end, running into open plains over a heap of ichor, liquefied flesh and scorched bone. Yamato briefly turned at the end, making sure not to slip, and clapped his hands together once more. Between the wooden walls, large spikes shot from the ground, impaling the Scourge within. Ichor was flung into the air in a disgusting shower, but Naruto and the others were already swiftly moving into the distance, in the direction Fen had indicated. But their movement was hampered. Whether by the sounds made by the dying Scourge, or simply the group's very presence, the fleshless monsters continued to appear. They charged like starving wolves, biting and snapping and moaning, completely relentless in their pursuit.

They won't stop, Yamato remembered. They won't stop because they're essentially eating machines. They don't tire and are always hungry, and show no mercy, because they're little more than immortal animals with unending appetites. He ran faster, up to Fen, who was at the very back.

"Now?"

Fen glared at him, or at least tried to. "Keep going, there's a big forest up ahead, and the chapel is at the very back, in a small clearing in the mountains at the back of it. We're lucky," he looked back, where some shadows were still visible in the distance, and occasionally growing closer, but never vanishing entirely. "These are the weakest kind. Little more than rotting cadavers that eat everything they come across. That's why we avoided the towns—that's where the big ones go, them and their nasty abomination puppets. We won't meet any of them until Stratholme."

Yamato nodded.

Up ahead, Naruto led the group towards the side, avoiding a pack of Scourge rushing towards them. He avoided even glancing at them, not wanting to see those eyes again. But they were everywhere. They could barely travel a few minutes before meeting another lone ghoul or a pack of voracious zombies.

"Avoid them," Yamato said, appearing beside Naruto again. "We can't afford to fight, not now, especially when we need to get her to safety."

Naruto nodded irritably. "I know."

They reached a forest before long, exactly as Fen had said. The Scourge grew less frequent here, but traces of their existence—whether sounds or animal carcasses stripped of meat—always remained. The fog grew thicker and the trees and brush more defined. Naruto pulled up his mask a bit more, as they ran past a large patch of mushrooms.

"Oi! They're going to follow us, right? What if we bring a bunch of them to this chapel place?" Naruto shouted back to Fen.

Surprisingly, Myrdraxxis answered first. "That won't be a problem."

Naruto looked back, and saw that the rogue had pulled a small vile from one of his many satchels. It was filled with a green, goopy liquid that was familiar to Naruto. "The slime stuff that doesn't smell, right?" He grinned. Myrdraxxis threw him the vial, and produced more, giving them to Yamato and Sai.

"Drink them," he said. Naruto twisted up his face in slight horror at the thought. "It does not taste like anything, brat. It will take affect immediately and will stop your body from producing its musk. You will not smell of anything for as long as it lasts." Naruto looked at the vial again, still frowning, but after seeing Yamato and Sai down theirs without trouble, he uncorked it and drained it all in a single gulp. Myrdraxxis was right—it didn't taste like anything, and had a goopy texture to it. Nothing happened after that—only that the Scourge sounds grew more distant as they ran, and their encounters with new ones dropped considerably.

Finally, all they could hear were the patter of their own feet. They slowed, but only just, wanting to reach the chapel as fast as they could.

"It should be up ahead," Fen said, after a while. "Just a few more minutes, it'll be at the top of a hill near the mountains."

"And how far is Stratholme, from here?" Yamato asked.

"Two day's travel, probably. That's assuming we haven't been discovered yet."

"By what? The lich you talked about?"

"As stupid as they are, those ghouls have a connection to their master; he may figure it out that we're here at some point, which means we're going to have to make this visit as short as possible, and head to Stratholme in the most direct way we can. I wanted to do that in the first place, anyways. These guys here have had a history of conversing with the Crusade."

Yamato's eyes narrowed. "Can we trust them?"

"Probably as much as any other of the Argent Dawn. They're a bit too friendly with everybody, though."

They soon emerged from the forest, at the foot of a tall hill that took them straight up to the mountains. At the top of the hill Naruto saw a large, white building sailing a grey and gold flag. They hurried towards the top, seeing that it was surrounded by two pits filled with sharpened wooden poles, and then further protected by a large wooden fence, which broke in center with a gate. A large group of Argent soldiers stood before the gate, weapons drawn, their faces hidden by silver helmets. They all stood perfectly straight and still, even as Naruto and the others drew nearer.

"Halt," one called, when they reached the top of the hill.

They stopped. Yamato bowed immediately.

"We are not enemies. We've come for refuge, and a doctor. Can you provide us with such?" he asked demurely, though his eyes remained constantly fixed on the soldiers.

"We can," another said. "But you must be checked first, and cleaned. Even if you are fine now, we know not if you have contracted the Undead Plague. We do not want it brought among us here."

"Fair enough. However, you must treat this one right away." Yamato gestured to Naruto, and his clones carried Hisari up to the soldiers.

"What's wrong?"

"Mana withdrawal," said Fen. "She hasn't had a chance to recuperate since we arrived. She needs help right away. You don't need to worry about her—her kind can't acquire the Plague."

"You need not inform us of what we already know, Forsaken. Very well." The middle one gestured to two others, who relieved the clones of their burden and ran back towards the chapel with hurried steps. The clones then vanished, scattering the ground with yellowish spores that they had collected en route.

Two other soldiers then broke off and led the rest in the same direction. They walked past three of the long ditches, entering the innermost area where the building was, along with a healthy number of tents and smaller buildings, all of which belched a steady stream of smoke into the air, and smelt of either food or metal. One soldier broke away at this point, heading towards the chapel, where the other one led them behind it and into a small patch of trees, where an even larger tent had been set up. An old man with a nearly skeletal face dressed in grey robes walked out to meet them, smiling.

"They must be sterilized and checked for Plague," the soldier said.

The old man nodded a few times, still smiling. "Of course, of course. Please enter, and take off your clothes. The Forsaken may proceed through to the washing rooms, and give yourselves a good scrub. If you lose any flesh or body parts, please clean it up, will you?"

"Crap," muttered Fen. "I was hoping to save that…"

"It is just flesh," Myrdraxxis said.

"Yeah, but I've had fond times with it…it'll be like losing a part of myself."

"That's because you will be."

"Oh…right."

What happened next was easily one of the most embarrassing points of Naruto's young life. Not only did he have to stand naked next to his teammate and team-leader, but he had to let a scary old man look at him all over, and even touch him in places that only a select few, and none of them male, he'd ever want to be touched. He also had to ward off Sai's looks of what the boy assured him was appreciation, but Naruto wasn't going to take any chances. Finally, the old man pronounced them all healthy and uninfected, which Naruto guessed could have taken as little time as using a _jutsu_ like the Crusade would, but kept silent. He quickly scrubbed himself clean in the bath tent, which was little more than a hole in the ground filled with hot water and various scented oils that cleaned and left them smelling fresh and fragrant (which soon faded into nothingness again, thanks to the Forsaken slime). After getting out, the old man presented them with their clothes, which had been similarly cleaned. The old man bowed them out of the tent, where the soldier waited like a statue, seeming never to have moved.

"Milord has requested your presence."

Naruto unconsciously tensed at the name. "Who?"

"Lord Maxwell Tyrosus, who governs the Dawn in this area of the world. He is eager to listen to your no doubt wondrous tale of being in such a place as this, without any apparent reason, in the company of two Forsaken and a _Sin'dorei_."

"It's a pretty good reason," Naruto muttered. The man didn't answer, and led them around and through the great doors into the chapel. Inside was surprisingly dull in comparison to its exterior—it was composed mostly of dark wood, with no ornaments, icons or even statues other than hangings depicting the golden sun of the Argent Dawn. It was almost bare of furniture, save for a single table in the middle, laden with papers and books and surrounded by three large men, all dressed in grey. One immediately turned—he was nearly bald, with had a hard, weathered face with only one deep grey, arresting eye and a scruffy silver beard. He gave the soldier a nod, and the man left swiftly. The man then regarded all of them in turn, but settled his gaze finally on Yamato.

"I am Maxwell Tyrosus. You lead this group, I presume?"

"I am acting captain, yes," said Yamato, calmly.

"I know not your dialect, nor your manner of dress. I think perhaps you might be one of the other worlders that were recently discovered—am I correct?" He waved to the other two men, both hefty and huge—obviously officers of a sort—and they exited as well. Yamato found himself quite impressed by the man's command. Every word seemed laden with it—it sounded harsh, but Yamato knew it necessary in such a place.

"You are," Yamato said. "Our reason for coming is—"

"I care not," the man said, with a wave. "I know you are not up to foul play. I was merely curious. And we are not so unorganized that we would not hear of your entrance several days prior. From what our intelligence has dictated that you created quite a stir at Tyr's Hand."

"So we did. You don't seem happy," Yamato said, noticing the man's deepening frown.

"I am, and yet not. I am in that any disturbance to disrupt the Crusade from the wickedness is a good thing, but I am not in that their retaliation will be furious and swift. They will not let you go that easily. Nor will the see our hospitality of you as anything less than an act of war."

"I thought you guys were okay with them…" Naruto said, remembering what Fen had said.

"Once," the man said, shooting his sharp gaze at Naruto now, "a long time ago, we did indeed have open negotiations with them. That stopped around ten years ago, when we discovered the worst of their wrongdoings. A powerful priestess and her ward helped us expose one of the most…disgusting secrets of the Crusade, so much that we have cut all ties with them, now and forever."

Naruto frowned. "What secret?"

"Perhaps another time, child. Now I am not in the mood, and there is still much to be discussed." He seized Yamato again with his eye. "If you have not returned by now to Tirisfal, then no doubt your mission had encountered a considerable obstacle. From your direction of travel, I can only guess your destination is Stratholme."

"You're quite correct," said Yamato, intensifying his own stare to match Maxwell's. He assumed even some of the ghoulish look that he had once tormented Naruto with.

Maxwell smiled, very slightly, but it was enough to change his look and tone dramatically.

"You will not be ready to leave for some time—I can guess three days at least. There is much you need to know about Stratholme before you even consider entering its walls, all of which I shall be happy to inform you of. You shall be provided with all necessary supplies to survive the trip should you take extreme caution, and are skilled enough in battle. You shall have all the room you need to practice, sleep and eat, and we will take good care of your fallen friend. She is," he said, as Naruto opened his mouth, "at this moment receiving infusions of _mana elixir_, which will restore her to her natural state in at least a day."

Naruto sighed in audible relief, which surprised Fen, though he had no way of conveying it to anyone else.

Naruto grinned at the man, "Thanks."

"It is nothing."

"It's more than that," Yamato said, his voice clipped. "I find it hard to believe that you are doing it out of the kindness of your heart. What do you want us to do, on our expedition?"

The man regarded Yamato with another, wider smile. He seemed pleased. "You're quite sharp, young man. I'm quite pleased. My request is simple in words, but far more complex in performance. I seek only the death of one of the Crusaders lodged within their sanctum—just one."

Yamato's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

"He is called the Grand Crusader—but his name is Dathrohan. I want him dead, with some proof of his death brought back for evidence."

Fen snorted. "Are you serious?" He shook his head, beginning to laugh silently. "Are you fucking serious, Lord Tyrosus?"

"Quite, Forsaken," Maxwell retorted, sharply. "You think it in jest?"

"There have been two people who've bested me in the use of sarcasm and irony—I thought maybe you were a third." Fen shrugged. "You might as well ask us to destroy the Scarlet Crusade itself—as we'll likely have to do that just to get to that man."

"He's the leader of them all, right?" Naruto said, recalling what Maya had told him about the Crusade. "You want us to kill him?" As unpredictable and willing to fight as he was, even Naruto knew that was bad idea—not only because of its danger, but because of the time it would likely take. This mission couldn't last much longer.

"You will be entering the sanctum anyways," Maxwell said. "I am simply giving you another objective. There is no doubt that he will be of great importance to your mission anyways. He might have the very plans you seek."

Yamato frowned at the man. "That's a very risky 'might', Tyrosus-dono. And what importance does this man hold to you?"

"He is the leader—the true leader—of the Scarlet Crusade. He does little in governing it as a whole, leaving that to his chosen delegates. He does, however, control all of the Crusaders in Stratholme, and personally wages war on the Scourge that inhabit the city. His destruction will not destroy the Crusade, but it will give us an edge in the grand scheme."

"This seems more personal."

"This man's orders have destroyed thousands of lives, many of which were my own soldiers. I have tried reasoning with him, but to no avail. Therefore, he must die, and the Scarlet Crusade must be saved."

"Saved?"

"We were once a part of them. However, once we realized that things were getting worse, we broke away from them, in an attempt to combat the Scourge on our own terms. Since then, the Crusade has gotten worse, more fanatical, to the point where they now barely seem human in their acts. Dathrohan must die—I am sure he is the cause of it. We may be able to save some of them with his death, and boost our own ranks, which are ever dwindling." Maxwell's face was no longer warm, and carried no smile. The bitter mask of age governed his face, making his silvery eye seem cruel. He settled down in a chair, but kept his eyes fixed on Yamato.

"In truth, we have been planning an operation to do just what I have asked you, but from what our operatives report—you managed to infiltrate Tyr's Hand and escape with little incident. You are powerful and very skilled, and your team is well-organized. You are perfect for this mission. And do not think it will go unrewarded. We will pay any fee you wish."

Yamato sighed. "Give us some time to discuss it. I'm afraid we can't take this lightly."

"Of course," Maxwell said. "Rooms will be provided with you. Perhaps you should sleep."

Yamato nodded, and sighed again. "Yes, perhaps you're right."

* * *

"I've set the bones, and have begun to repair them," Tsunade said, calmly. She stood over Benedictus' bed, where the old man lay unconscious, nearly a quadripalegic. Tyrande, and Vol'jin stood a little ways behind her. The troll chieftain was stroking a tusk, frowning, while Tyrande was gazing out the window, at the moon that stretched over the castle.

"But where is Princess Kira?" Captain Eric said, where from where he stood at the door, at perfect attention.

"Who knows? We'll have to ask him when he wakes up," she said.

"Doz' wounds not natural, lady Hokage," Vol'jin said.

"I know," she said. "There's something mixed in with his _chakra_. I'm not sure what it is yet, either. It's different from every _chakra_ I've ever seen." She glanced up at him. "And I've seen a lot."

"I not know what it be either," the troll said, nodding. "But vicious, an' evil."

Tsunade nodded. There was no better way to describe it. It was like a bit of some demon had been broken off inside him, and wrapped around his legs and arms, and had detonated in such a fine way that it had severed the bones cleanly and quickly—but not painlessly. When they had found him, he had been in agony, and only after a few doses of some of their strongest anesthetic had they been able to put him into a dreamless sleep, so that they could begin work on his bones. She'd set them as best she could, using adhesive _chakra _to keep them together, while Tyrande had found a potion designed for bone healing (which they apparently did have), and had given it to the old man. He would be apparently find in a few days, but from what Tyrande believed, the damage was more than just physical.

"He is old, but I have heard legends about this man," she had told Tsunade. "No mere broken bones could lay him out for more than an hour or two. I suspect that there was something else that happened to him."

"The amount of blood we found is testament to that," Tsunade said. "Do you know if blood records are kept in this city?"

"I wouldn't imagine so. Only the gnomes possess such technology, and they have yet to implement it anywhere else."

"Damn."

Tsunade stared in annoyance down at the old man, and willed for him to awake. She wanted answers, and she had never been a very patient person. Her student was missing, as was the princess of the place she was supposed to have protected, the girl's handmaiden, and even Naruto's fox. They had a trashed council room—filled with so much blood it could have come from a dozen men, or one. Cairne had remarked when he had first laid eyes on the room, "It seems we'll need a new table."

She now had to wait until the oldest man she'd ever met awoke and told them what had happened, and what they were going to do. As it stood, Stormwind was without both its leaders, and its affairs were entirely in the hands of eight foreigners who had come to speak about an alliance. Captain Eric was doing quite well, all things considered, and had taken appropriate charge of most of the domestic affairs. They had contacted the only other person who had any experience in politics and that was native, a man named Sevenius Coutrend, and hoped that he would be overseeing the dozens of things that needed to be done in this situation, while they watched over the recovery of the current regent.

"How could someone slip in, without eight of the world's strongest people not knowing?" Tsunade muttered to herself. And they, whether it one or many, had to be stronger than Sakura, Benedictus, Kira and Kylia in order to accomplish what they apparently had. Tsunade was usually a braggart when it came to her student, but mostly because it was true. Sakura was powerful, and even then, Benedictus was supposed to have been as well.

"Power is not everything, it seems," Tyrande said lightly. "But things must be handled appropriately here, now. Obviously this meeting is postponed until we find princess Kira, Kylia, and your student. It would do well to offer aid to this place in whatever way we can."

"Yeah," said Tsunade. "Gaara's already returned to his village, to send for back-up. He probably feels as guilty as I do."

"I'm surprised," said Tyrande. "You do not seem to be the type to admit that."

"There's not much you know about me, but I'll grant you that," said Tsunade. "But I brought three full teams of shinobi for more than just protection. I wanted this place safe, and for some reason, that didn't happen."

"Why would they not hear something on their patrols?"

"You got me," Tsunade snapped. "I'm guessing some sort of sound-dampening _jutsu_, but you'd know better than I. I'm not at all familiar with this place, or it's _jutsu_."

"That seems plausible. But even so, it must have been a remarkably swift attack, for them to not notice that Sakura was missing. You said that they met up in twenty minute intervals?"

"Yes."

"Then it must have taken under one of those intervals in order for this act to take place. They did not sound the alarm right away, did they?" Tyrande glanced to her right, as Vol'jin gave them both a soft nod, and vanished from the room, off to complete other business.

"They searched for her first, and that's how they found the room." Tsunade looked at Benedictus again, hoping to see some change in his appearance. But he remained the same—grey and limp beneath the pure white sheets.

"We can do nothing but wait," said Tyrande, sighing. She followed the woman's gaze. "As hard as it is, we cannot afford to make a mistake at this point. I have no doubt that this is going to cause many problems for this alliance in the near future, unless we can hold it together. Do you have any way of contacting Naruto?"

Tsunade gruffly shook her head. "The last link with the brat vanished with the fox. Who kidnaps a fox, anyways?"

"She and Naruto have a very special bond. Perhaps her kidnappers were aware of this," Tyrande said. "Bonds can be exploited quite easily, you know."

"Yeah," said Tsunade. She glanced at the elf. "What now?"

"As I said, we wait."

Tsunade sighed. "You're good at that, aren't you?"

"I once did it for ten thousand years," Tyrande said, softly. "A few more days shall not be hard."

Tsunade smirked, looking at the elf's face.

"Liar."

* * *

"We're not staying here more than three days. Naruto, I have a job for you."

The blonde looked up at him. They stood a little ways outside the church, having long finished their discussion with Lord Maxwell, and now alone. Sai had gone to bed, and Myrdraxxis and Fen to converse by themselves. Yamato had taken Naruto immediately by the hand, and dragged him outside, much to the boy's annoyance. But seeing the serious look on the man's face, he quieted and listened to what he had to say.

"For the next three days, I want you to train. It's time you put what Kakashi-senpai taught you to use. You haven't had much time to use it in the past week or so, have you?"

Naruto shook his head. "I can't get much past half the leaf. You want me to learn the rest in just a few days?"

"Yes," Yamato said. "I'll help, as you'll need the Kyuubi's _chakra_. But by the end of these three days, I want you to be able to manipulate wind elemental _chakra_ as skillfully as a master."

Naruto's eyes bulged. "What?"

"I heard you mastered _Kage Bunshin_ in only a few hours. You mastered Rasengan within a week. With the technique that Kakashi-senpai showed you, and by your level of growth, it should literally take you sometime under an hour to do this. With the maximum number of clones, you'll be able to figure it out quickly enough, and by the time we get to Stratholme, I want you to be able to use it functionally in battle." Yamato bent down, staring into his wide eyes. "It seems we'll have to take this mission no matter what. It's going to be incredibly difficult—so much so that I'm not even assured of it's completion. This technique will grant you great power, and once you have mastered it, you'll be a lot more deadly in battle. I've heard you once relied a lot on the Kyuubi. This technique will put you towards a level where you'll be _just_ as effective with or without its _chakra_. We're still going to be training with that, of course—but that will take more time than we currently have. So we're going to maximize result for time, and get you ready for facing these people. Wind elemental _chakra_, Naruto, is one of the deadliest for combat. With your current combat style, it'll suit you perfectly."

By the end of Yamato's speech, Naruto felt a pleasant surge of adrenaline—the rush he got whenever he was about to learn something new, to learn something that would put him closer towards his goal. For some reason, his spirits dampened a little at that thought, but it could not keep the smile from his face, or his lips from moving.

"Okay, okay, just teach me it already!"

Yamato nodded, and smiled.

"Fine, let's start."

* * *

EDIT: The Argent Dawn were actually an offshoot of the Crusade. This has been changed. Sorry about the mistake; I got mixed up :/

Again, I apologize for the lateness, and the lack of forum. It's exam time again, and I've been studying for the past few days, and trying to work out a system of studying in the day and writing at night. It's worked pretty well.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I've introduced another favorite of mine, Lady Demetria, whose name is from the game, but whose personality is wholly mine. I've had such fun creating her, that I hope you like her (or hate her).

For those who might frown upon me for using the "heroine's parent isn't dead, and is actually evil" card, well, don't. I hope to explore her character much more in the next chapters, though I hope this one made an impression. Of course, it'll become clear why Kira, Benedictus and Kylia were so shocked by her attitude when Kira's mother's personality is fleshed out as well. But I hope you've gotten an inkling from this and past mentions of her about what she's like. Don't worry—more will come. Don't slag me off yet!

Hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and I'll see you in a week or two, hopefully.

Here's a heads up, as well—in June, I won't be able to update, as I'll be heading to Egypt and Ethiopia. I don't plan to bring my computer to either, and I might not have time to write up anything. But if you don't hear from me for a month, don't worry I'm not dead, just away in (relatively) new lands.

Hope that helps. See you next week, I hope! Expect a shorter chapter, if it does come out, however, since I'll be taking exams.

See you.

General Grievous


	16. The Scarlet Bastion

**Disclaimer: **_Look! I'm typing in italics, not bold! See, it's different! I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft!_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

'_Demi, you cannot do this again.'_

'_Oh?' she smiled, pure and beautiful. 'Are you going to stop me? Please, you must understand, this isn't something that I can question. I must do what I can, and this is what it amounts to. I'm sorry.'_

'_I worry,' he said back to her. 'You have done this far too often for your own good, girl. You walk those lands more than anybody should, and fight those things on your own when it isn't needed. You have seen horrors nobody else has—so why do you continue to do this?'_

'_Because I must,' she emphasized, shaking her head, and continuing to smile. She always did—no matter what she stood up against, she somehow managed to find time to put forth that beautiful, pure and evidently true smile that Benedictus never saw leave her face, ever since she had started training her. Perhaps he liked it most about her._

'_You have taught me all you know,' she said. 'Probably more. You know perfectly well that if you weren't bound to the Church, you would be in my position.'_

'_If I were in your position, girl, I would attend to my family before anything else.'_

'_Kira is a strong girl, and I know that she is safe here. But I can't be that selfish.'_

"_Why ever not? You are entitled to spend your life with your daughter, girl! Not fighting Scourge with that brute and healing those you've never met and will never know.'_

'_I'm aware of that. But my daughter is safe here, Benedictus. Anduin will protect this place, but as a priestess of the Light, I can't! So instead, I go out and help perfect strangers, because it is the right thing to do. Compassion! Is that not one of the Three Virtues that you hold so dear?' she said with vehement determination, but no anger._

'_Of course it is, you foolish girl, I've been alive a lot longer than you,' he snapped. 'But I also know that compassion does not just extend to those who are dying in ditches, or afflicted with disease or fleeing from Horde! Why not show some compassion towards your own family?'_

'_I am! Why can you not see what I'm doing is right?'_

'_What is right or wrong is not that simple, and you know it.'_

'_I love Kira. I love Anduin. I love Stormwind. I even love you, Benedictus! But how can I sit here and love, when others cannot?' Again, simple determination; rather like a child explaining to her parent why she did something naughty, without knowing she had done wrong._

'_It is not your concern. You are not the heroine of a book, you silly girl. Just because you want to help, does not mean you can!'_

'_You stupid old man.' The flash of anger surprised him. 'It is my concern! I have to do this! I have to help! I can help!'_

_He sighed. 'You sound like a child.'_

'_Shut up,' she said, her eyes closing for a moment, her breathing quickening. She took a few deep breaths while he watched her. _

'_This is the first time I've seen you angry for quite a while,' he said, softly._

'_Forgive me. I did not mean that. But please try to understand.'_

_He didn't speak, and just looked at her. Her eyes were still closed, but her breathing had slowed, and her face returned to its serene beauty. She looked at him again, her eyes the same as when she had closed them. She smiled a little again. 'Please, Benedictus. I have to help. I want to, more than anything, to help. This will be my last trip. I know I cannot do this forever, especially as Kira gets older.'_

'_You wish her to become a priestess?'_

'_No. I wish her…' she shrugged a little, and smiled. 'I cannot say, at this point. Whatever she wants to be, I will support her.'_

_He sighed, and stroked his little beard. 'Hmph. You are a grown woman. I cannot stop you from doing what you believe you must. Take the brute and go. I will never understand your obligations.' _

'_I do not ask you to. They are my own. I'm not even sure I understand them myself.' She smiled. 'It is in my nature.'_

'_Hmph. An easy enough excuse. Come as swiftly back as you can. Anduin is going to need you very soon.'_

'_Why?'_

'_Something terrible will happen. I know not what. But something.'_

'_Very well, I shall return as quickly as I can. Thank you, Benedictus.' She walked forwards, and planted a kiss on his forehead. 'Thank you, master.'_

'_Hmph. You were much better when I was still training you. I'm tempted to recall my belief that you are the only woman in the world who is not a cunning serpent blessed with everything that can destroy a man.'_

_She laughed. 'I am honored for that. I've never asked you why it is so. Surely I am not the kindest woman in the world?'_

'_You must be, to put yourself in such danger for people who don't deserve your help,' the old man grunted._

_She nodded, smiling a little less. 'Thank you, Benedictus.'_

'_Promise me one thing.'_

'_What?'_

'_Get angry more often, gorgon.'_

_She peered at him, and then smiled and laughed again. _

'_Of course.'_

Benedictus awoke, remembering his student's final smile.

"Damn you," he said, softly. "Damn you, Demi, you stupid little girl."

* * *

In only one day, Naruto had managed to break a leaf to two using only his _chakra_. It hadn't been easy—despite Yamato's confidence in him, and as soon as he had accomplished it, Yamato had moved him on to something much more difficult. They had one more day left, and Naruto had yet to find much practical use for the technique, other than using it to help manipulate his _Kazaashi_ elemental technique. By using his new wind elemental _chakra_, he could begin to increase his speed even further, and give himself a bit more control in battle using it. But that was only a side project, which he devoted only a dozen clones to. Yamato had moved him on to something else.

"Wind _chakra_ is meant to 'cut'," Yamato said to him the day after he had completed the task. "You know that now. Your mission at this point is to apply that to something useful."

"Like what?"

"That sword is a good thing to start with. From what you said, it draws in _chakra_, doesn't it?"

"For defense, though," Naruto said, pulling the sword free from its scabbard, and holding it out in front. "That's what King Magni said, at least."

"That shouldn't mean it won't accept your wind _chakra_, if you provide the intent. But like I said, this is much bigger. I'd give you a different task—like cutting a waterfall in half—but that won't do much good here, and it'd be too dangerous."

Naruto stared at him. Cutting a waterfall in half? This guy was more of a monster than Kakashi-sensei. He looked at the sword again. "But what do I do then? It'll take in the _chakra_, but how am I gonna use it like that?"

Yamato shrugged. "Figure it out for yourself. You've got two days left. I'm not a specialist in wind _chakra_—mine are earth and water." He turned, and walked away. The next four hours were grueling for the boy—he had little idea of what to do, other than mold the _chakra_ into his sword. It worked at first, but he had no idea how to maintain a steady stream of it without burning himself out. But with each clone, he did get closer—however minute.

He tried his best not to get frustrated by his failures. Each one he met with an increase in his desire to get the technique down, as he needed it if he was going to get through this mission as fast as he could, and it would be even more helpful when the time came to confront Orochimaru and Sasuke. In fact, Sasuke was nearly always at the forefront of his mind when he trained; it made him get up again, despite how far he fell.

When Yamato told him to take a break, he did so happily. Yamato then got up and left the small ravine that they were training in. It was in the woods behind the Light's Hope Chapel, tucked away in the mountains so it would not only be hard for anyone to spot them, but it provided a large space for Naruto to spread his clones. The trees that hid it were mostly stripped bare from Naruto's first day of training.

In the chapel yard, he found Sai, whom he had been looking for. He was reluctant to let the boy too far out of his sight. Tsunade-sama had warned him a little of Sai's history—he was a member of ROOT, which meant that he was a potential enemy, especially if Danzou-sama was a traitor, as Tsunade-sama believed.

So far, he had demonstrated a remarkable willingness to cooperate, despite his cheek and disturbing personality.

"How is Naruto-kun doing?" the boy said, smiling.

Yamato narrowed his eyes a little. "Very well."

"He's a bit silly, I think. Did he not train with the Legendary Sennin, Jiraiya-sama? Why does he not know elemental _chakra_?"

Again, Yamato's eyes narrowed. He hadn't remembered telling the boy about that—and indeed, that was precisely one of the reasons he brought Naruto out away from anyone else. He couldn't risk Sai learning too much about him, or Naruto's abilities, especially if it turned out he was truly a traitor. But he answered, anyways.

"He does, on an instinctive level—he's learned some fire, water and earth _jutsu_. He just doesn't have a grasp on its basic fundamentals."

"It seems to me like he simply learns _jutsu_ by their general properties. I don't think he really understands what he's doing."

"How do you know that?"

"Danzou-sama has access to many detailed files, being a member of the Konoha Council, and all." The boy closed the small black book that he held, and shoved it into his backpack, which lay by his side. "Naruto-kun is very interesting."

Yamato didn't answer.

"But I don't think he likes me very much. He must hate me, even, for bringing up Uchiha Sasuke a lot." Sai shook his head, and smiled. "I still don't understand all of that. Perhaps I'll figure it out soon, wouldn't you think? I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I think I will soon have it."

"No," Yamato said flatly. "I doubt it."

"Ah, really? Why do you say that?"

"If you have to ask, then you'll never realize." Yamato turned. "I'd get some training in as well. As confident as you may be in your abilities, I wouldn't just sit there making drawings. We don't know what we're going up against, yet." He walked away from Sai, who stared at his back from some time, before returning his attention to the forest below him, shrouded in thick brown fog, and teeming with the voices of the dead.

"Perhaps," he said to himself, and took out his sketchbook once more. "Perhaps."

* * *

"She's awake," Lord Maxwell said to Yamato, when he and Naruto descended from mountains at the end of the day. His arms were crossed, and he looked pensive. "Would you like to see her?"

"Yes," Yamato said, nodding. He looked at Naruto, who was nodding as well, to his surprise. "How is she?"

As Maxwell turned and led them into the chapel, he said, "Quite…interesting. I don't believe I've met a blood elf that has ever been so quiet in the presence of humans. She seems quite…humble."

"That doesn't sound like her," said Yamato, frowning. Again he looked at Naruto, who through his weariness was also frowning, but also looking a little pleased as well. "Has she spoken at all?"

"Very little. She is in good health, and the infusions have brought her condition under control again. She will be ready to fight in the next day or so, when you leave here," Maxwell led them down a stairwell through a door in the main chapel, where a dark, cramped corridor led them to an even darker, smaller room, which contained only a bed and a little space to move off the bed, and a single window facing the mountains. Hisari was sitting up in bed, looking more different than imaginable. Her eyes were dull and nearly lifeless, and her hair, sticking in every direction, no longer had its glittering sheen. Her skin was clammy and pale, and did not glow. No pompous, hideous sneer marred her face. She did not sit up straight like a queen, but was hunched over like a peasant after years of backbreaking toil. She was dressed in little more than a white cotton shirt, and no longer looked so fearsome without her armor and weapon.

"You look awful," Yamato said softly, after Maxwell had left. "How do you feel?"

"_Fine,"_ she said, hollowly. "_Why are you here?"_

"As a part of my team, I need to ensure that you're fighting fit. You play possibly the most important role, and you're talents are going to be needed in the next few days. I don't suppose Lord Tyrosus had filled you in on the situation?"

"_I know nothing," _she said, all the while averting her eyes from Naruto, who stood just beside Yamato (which was difficult in the small room) and was staring at her in nothing less than shock. He had never seen such a drastic change. As Yamato explained the situation, in short clipped details—all the while silently observing Naruto and Hisari's interaction—Naruto could do nothing but stare. Had this been his doing? Had he forced all the life out of her eyes? Granted, he had despised the look she had had before—contempt and superiority, with a dash of cunning, madness, and selfishness. He had hated the look on her face and the way she had spoken to him and what she had spoken of.

But he hated this as well.

Naruto could not help a stab of guilt when he saw Hisari like this. Had that been his fault? She looked like a popped balloon or a deflated soufflé, pitiful and useless; and if there was one thing that Naruto couldn't stand, it was uselessness. Of course, that implied that he believed in such a thing—he didn't. He believed, and always had, that everything had a purpose. Everybody did as well. He had had to believe it, to get through his childhood, to assure himself that he had a use in his world.

But when she was like that, she truly did look useless, like a sack of bones and blood covered in thin layer of flesh and dressed up to look vaguely appealing. But her posture, her face, her _eyes_, all screamed uselessness, and that was something far more disgusting to Naruto than the selfishness, the prejudice, the sexism and the drugged up power she had shown him before. She couldn't even look at him. Before, she would have challenged him glare for glare. At least she had been on a similar level with him. Now, she was so far below Naruto that she appeared nothing more than a distant speck that didn't seem to have eyes, much less be able to meet them.

"Seeing as how you're the medic, you'll be required to accompany us," Yamato finished, noticing Naruto's growing emotion as he did. He tried to capture Hisari's gaze, and failed. "Does that sound alright?"

"_Yes," _she said, simply.

Yamato could not help a small snort. "Are you positive?"

"_I will be fine."_

"What exhausted you so much before?" he finally asked. "I doubt it was the aura, or my healing. Did you use something against the Crusaders?" His eyes flickered to Naruto. "Or something else?"

"She bit off more than she could chew, _taichou," _Naruto said. "She did a number on some of them, and got a little over-excited." He nodded, as if confirming to himself that that was the truth. "Right?" He glanced at the girl.

She finally looked at him, with her head a little tilted, and didn't answer for a second. Yamato immediately knew Naruto was lying—it was so obvious that the boy should have felt embarrassed for even thinking of it—but he didn't say anything, and just waited until Hisari finally spoke a single word, "_Yes."_

Yamato nodded, deciding to leave it. He glanced at Naruto, knowing that he was covering up for her. He didn't know what, but he hoped they'd work it out soon. He turned, and said, "Naruto, we have one more day of training. Get as much sleep as possible. We start training at dawn."

When Yamato had left, Hisari and Naruto stood looking at each other for a while longer.

"_Lady Sylvanas, warned me about you," _she finally said.

Naruto cocked his head to the side. "She did?"

"_She warned me of what you would try to do. I didn't believe it would be possible at first. Now I am not so sure. Why did you do that?"_

"Do what?"

"_Cover for me. You would have had the perfect chance to expose me to him, and I wouldn't have been able to continue. You hate me, so it stands to reason that—"_

"Oi, oi," Naruto said, waving a hand. "Who said I hated you?"

Hisari said nothing.

"Nobody," Naruto answered. "That's because I never did. I didn't like your attitude, but I didn't have a reason to hate you at all."

"_I tried to kill you."_

"Yeah, well," he mumbled, sighing. "It's not like you're alone in that. Besides…it's not like we're that different, anyways."

She looked up at him. "_What?"_

"You can't control yourself when you're like that, huh?" He scratched his head. In the gloom of the room, Hisari could see his down-turned face, with eyes a little glossed from memories and past emotions. "I know what that's like. It's happened to me before, and I did a lot of bad things when I was like that. I've killed people. But people have still forgiven me for doing it." He met her eyes again. "So there's no reason why I shouldn't forgive you. Or find any reason to hate you just 'cause you've got a problem like that." He crossed his arms.

"But I really could start to hate you if you didn't do something about it."

She looked at him. "_Do what? Control it? I cannot. I enjoy the feeling too much. There is no way for me to not love it. It gives one such power that it's inebriating. I cannot bring myself to give that up."_

Naruto glared at her. "Then I may start to hate you. Why the hell can't you just try?"

"_Because even victory is never as pleasurable as the feelings coming up to it," _she said. "_No matter how I think about it, I will never enjoy winning a battle more than fighting it. The feelings are indescribable. Surely, if you think we are so similar, you can understand that?"_

Naruto could. In fact, he often found a similar emotion running through him during battles. He had once craved fights, not for the simple feeling of battle (that had come as a side order) but for the pleasure of knowing that if he won, he'd be that much closer to his dream. He _had _to fight, in order to get stronger, and get closer. Though recently, he had been wondering how much he would have to fight, and how strong he would need to get.

"I guess I sort of can," he said. "But that's no excuse. I had to master it and so do you."

She looked at him. "_I do not have to do anything, boy."_

Naruto crossed his arms again. "Then why the hell are you feeling so bad about it? You're not sitting in here with those eyes 'cause I compared you to _them_, are you? Or is this just a side effect of that weird power? I don't get you. If you don't want to change, then don't, and just continue to do as bad as you are now."

She stared at him, and said nothing. He just continued to glare. "Geez, I'm really going to hate you by the end of this, if you can't even find the will to change, especially if you want to."

"_What if I don't?"_

"Don't give me that," he said. "You want to change, or else you'd be outside strutting around again like before. You want to, but you for some reason can't. You're probably scared."

Some life returned to her eyes. "_I am not afraid."_

"Then change! The best thing is to find something to work for. Find something instead of just fighting. If you fight for something, when you get it I guarantee you'll get a whole lot more pleasure out of it than if you just continue doping up on that green stuff."

Hisari didn't respond, and turned her gaze away. She didn't say any more, so Naruto, after staring at her for a few more minutes, quietly left, shutting the door and leaving her in darkness.

* * *

Sakura opened her eyes, and found herself chained to a wall.

So she decided to close them again, and slowly reopen them, wondering if somehow she was having a dream. The pain in her arms suggested the opposite, but she had heard of lucid dreams that could simulate pain, to a degree. But if this was one, she probably had no control over it. When her eyes opened again, and adjusted to the darkness, she realized that she probably wasn't dreaming. And that she was naked.

She nearly shouted in surprise when she noticed her unclothed state, but instead produced a squeal of pain when arms strained against the cold manacles that bound them. She looked around, noticing that she was in nothing less than a storybook torture room from the Continents. Chains with hooks hung from the ceilings, tables were strewn with all sorts of cutting, piercing, strangling, bludgeoning, burning and otherwise pain-inducing objects, some of which looked recently used. She saw a primitive torture device—an iron maiden—just on the edge of her vision to the right, along with a variety of barred cells and metal doors. To her left was but one room, barred by a heavy metal door with a clouded red glass window, which she guessed hadn't been so originally. The unsightly stains beneath the door were evidence of that. The room stank of decay and blood and chemicals, as if a thousand amputations had just been performed while she had been unconscious on the table closest to her (which appeared to be the worst of them, nearly black from all the stains). The wall behind her was moist and cold, and slightly soft, as if covered in a layer of moss. She struggled against her bonds again, making disgusting sounds against the slick walls.

She was alone, naked, and in a torture room, having been unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time from the violent blow of a vicious and likely insane woman. Said woman had for some reason taken her here, stripped her of clothes, and had chained her to a wall, without her waking up even once, and then leaving her to hang for some time, if the pain in her arms was any evidence. And she was trying to be rational and stay calm about it, but it was becoming quite difficult. So she did what she did best in such situations: She thought.

Benedictus had said her name—"Demi", even though she herself had announced it—twice—as Demetria. It had caused a reaction in Kira that had truly frightened Sakura. A look of shock, wonder and then—joy. She had for just a brief moment looked happy—rapturous even, that that woman had been there. But that had degenerated into shock and confusion almost as swiftly as the joy had come. Kylia's reaction had been just as strange and obvious, and even Benedictus—the old man who reminded her of a second Sandaime Hokage— had had tears in his eyes when he'd looked upon the woman.

Tears.

Whoever she was, Demetria looked like—or perhaps was—someone they all knew. And to have caused that reaction—to bring joy at the sight of your father's apparent murderer—meant that that woman had to have been very close to Kira at one point. She could only think of one such relation.

Could that woman have been Kira's mother? And if so, just what had happened to make her like that?

Thinking of Kira inevitably brought her thoughts to their final words to each other. Sakura felt stabs of guilt in her bare stomach, and felt a sudden urgency to apologize. It was not that she hadn't meant what she said—because she _had_—but she knew that she hadn't treated the girl fairly, and had been nasty for a while. She couldn't explain why, either. Kira was a perfectly nice and competent girl. She could easily be the queen everyone expected her to be. But for some reason, they hadn't gotten along, which was a shame in Sakura's eyes. It seemed like they had a lot in common. And when she thought of what Kira had said to her, she realized nearly all of it was true. Though she had been nicer to Naruto since he had returned, it was easy to fall back into her old routine, even if Sasuke had not returned. The guilt became more the stabs at this point, and she felt the need to apologize to Naruto as well. Naruto was just as or more important. _Just as_, she thought, shaking her head.

Her thoughts turned back when the woman's voice floated into her ear—"_Your usefulness has increased tenfold. I cannot wait to get you back"_—back where? Here? And if so, where was this place? And why had she been brought here? What possible purpose could she have for a woman from a world that she had scarcely been in two weeks? Above all, how had she known what a shinobi was?

And why had she been stripped naked? Humiliation? Or had that crazy woman done it on a whim?

Sakura had always hated questions she couldn't answer, and thankfully there had been few in her life. But this massive influx of unanswerable questions bothered her as much as her nakedness and her pained arms. She wanted to be free, clothed, and full of answers, and that required her to get out of this place as soon as possible, and then find out where she was, and why she had been taken.

So she attempted, several times, to free herself. Forcing _chakra_ into her fists, she banged them against the wall, using only the small amount of freedom she had from the manacles. But nothing worked. The metal that made up the manacles had been fused into the walls as well, just beneath the stone. It only made a hollow thrumming when struck. She sighed. It probably would have been too easy that way. She had no other type of escape techniques, as the basics did not account for nearly unbreakable metal manacles, and she had never gone through with the complicated and often painful procedures to boost her level to advanced, which allowed her to selectively dislocated her bones to free her herself. She spared a brief moment to wishing she had learned it, before thinking on.

Maybe Tsuwabuki was taken, she thought. It was a long shot, but maybe she had. If so, she would doubtlessly be contacting Naruto about their situation. She decided she had to be somewhere in the Scarlet Crusade's headquarters, and from what she remembered, there were only three remaining ones, all in the same place; a place that Naruto was going to, or near at least. Maybe he was close by. Maybe he'd come and rescue her.

The shuffling of footsteps distantly to her right echoed in her ears, breaking her thoughts. She reflexively went limp, and closed her eyes, playing unconscious. The footsteps approached, as did the sound of fervent mutterings.

"Beautiful? Or putrid? Lovely? Vile? Sexy? Wretched? Arousing? Demonic? Demonic…and arousing? No! No! It must be demonic! Or putrid or vile or wretched or hateful or disgusting or warm, or smooth or divine or beautiful or sexy! That must be it! Or perhaps…" It went on like this, so Sakura chanced to open an eye. A thin man wearing beautiful silk scarlet robes trimmed with gold shuffled about in front of her, glancing at her occasionally, his eyes suddenly filling with perversion, before he swiftly downcast his eyes as if in shame, and stared at her with hate and fury, before switching back to the aroused look of a sexual predator. She shut her eyes immediately, her heart beating faster.

"She smells divine! No…disgusting! Like rotten shit! Or roses and cherry blossoms! Yes…beautiful…ugly! Ugly and disgusting and wretched!"

"Where am I?"

She decided to speak. It was the stupidest thing she could do, but she'd rather he did something that continued speaking like that. She had never been so scared in her life. His presence made her realize her own helplessness.

He immediately looked at her, his eyes filling with wonder for a second, and then disgust, and he shrunk back, hunching over and snapping at her.

"You're awake!" he cried.

"Yes," she said. "Where am I?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I was told to wait for mistress. You filthy…angel!" He shook his head, and averted his eyes again. "I must wait. I cannot speak or do anything."

Sakura felt a little relieved. She hadn't gotten any answers, but she was assured of her safety for as long as she and the man were alone—even if she did have to bear with his muttered insults and lecherous eyes.

"Who are you?"

He looked up, his eyes filling once again with righteous anger. "I am Interrogator Alcond."

"Is this place yours?"

As lechery filled his eyes again, he said, "I work here, yes. But I am not to harm you. It is vexing, because you are so beautiful and so unholy and impure and it is my right and my desire to destroy you, as I have had all the others. But His Holiness commands it—so I must obey."

"His Holiness?"

The man's eyes grew wide with terrible anger, and he smiled for the first time.

"His Holiness, Grand Crusader Dathrohan!"

* * *

Kira awoke with a start, and found herself in a canopy bed in a bright and richly furnished room painted the color of blood.

She shot up in bed, her eyes going wide, but clasped them immediately shut from the brightness. It took her a few moments, and in the time it took for her eyes to begin to adjust from absolute darkness to a well-lit room, she was able to gather her jumbled and hazy thoughts, and put them towards the situation at hand. She noticed that she felt immensely weak, and that the room was completely silent and smelled of fresh roses. When she opened her eyes—slowly at first—she discovered the room to be furnished in gold, red and white, with the most elaborate furniture and wall hangings she had ever seen. She was strongly reminded of Whitemane's room at the Scarlet Monastery, and with that thought, she remembered what had happened, and why she was here.

She remembered feeling a rough hand over her mouth, and then everything had turned red, and then black. She remembered the smell of the woman's breath on her back—like roses in the sun, only covered in blood and bile. She remembered everything up to that as well—from her fight with Sakura, to seeing her master's limbs broken into pieces with the snap of the fingers. And then she remembered nothing at all.

She knew she was somewhere in a Scarlet Crusade headquarters, but her only knowledge of them applied to those three in the Plaguelands. But how had she been taken there without waking up? A drug, perhaps? And had she been the only one taken?

Probably not, she decided. "_I cannot wait to get you back,"_ Demetria had said to Sakura. She must have been taken as well. Her stomach turned at the thought of Sakura, however. She remembered the heated words they'd exchanged, and suddenly wanted to take it all back. Sakura wasn't that bad. She was kind, pretty and very smart, and they shared a lot of interests. She had her problems, like anyone else. Just like her, in fact. Sakura's words still bit into her, as she realized that not one was false. Somewhere along the line she had become a pampered little princess who relied on everyone else, using only words and never actions. She had relied too much on Naruto in the past—because she had assumed he would always be there for her. Sakura had made her realize that Naruto's dream was as the leader of _his_ village, in _his _world. He didn't belong here. She was too weak to deserve his help and she'd had the gall to retaliate against Sakura. Even Sakura's problems couldn't compare to her own.

She wanted to apologize, immediately.

Her thoughts drifted away soon, as she gazed around the room. Did all Crusaders live in such comfort? She suspected she was at either Tyr's Hand or Hearthglen, then. There was no way they'd be able to afford such decoration in the middle of a war zone like Stratholme. But then again, they were insane.

If she was in Stratholme, then that was infinitely worse. She was in the middle of a never-ending battle—caught between the insane Crusade and the monstrous Scourge. It also meant she was in the middle of nowhere, and even if she did escape, she'd be hopelessly lost within the Plaguelands themselves. But then again, if she was in Stratholme that meant Naruto might be here as well. If he and his team were able to come then—

She shook her head and growled silently to herself. No. She couldn't think like that. She had relied on Naruto far too much, and it was only a slim chance that he might be here anyways. Perhaps they had already completed their mission, and had left. Perhaps they had discovered that the portal had not been in Stratholme. Any number of things could have happened, and she didn't want to hinge everything on him being there. If he was, she could easily account for it. But if he wasn't, then that meant she had to get out of this place as soon as she could.

"_I'd like to see you try, little princess."_

The voice passed through her head, and if it weren't for its volume, she would have considered on of her own thoughts. She started violently, and looked around in horror.

"_The door is unlocked now, my dear. I have many things to do, and many of those require you joining me. Now come, come, and we'll start our rounds. I am at the end of the hall."_

There was a click as the door unlocked, and then silence. Kira stared at the door for a second, breathing heavily, before she got up and walked to it. Opening it revealed a beautiful and bright hallway—as well furnished as her room—lined with doors. At the very end of the hall was another door, which was slightly ajar, and from which steam was slowly creeping. She felt a moist heat in that direction, as she slowly moved down the hall, constantly looking behind her and constantly glancing at the other doors. All of them were shut, and when she checked, locked.

"_Come along." _Demetria's sharp voice interrupted her thoughts, and compelled her to walk faster. When she reached the end of the hall, she could feel heat from the open door, and her the sound of rushing water. Inside was the most luxurious bath she had ever seen—a large pool surrounded by luminescent marble, with four golden taps shaped like lion's heads around it, their mouths gushing hot water into the pool. Next to one tap Lady Demetria sat, and when Kira had fully entered the room, she stood up and turned to meet the girl.

Kira took a step back, both awed and horrified by Demetria's form. Her body was perfect in every form possible—long, smooth, and perfectly white legs; a trim but curvy waste; succulently plump breasts with small, pink nipples; a perfect butt and nearly every other desirable attribute a woman could possess, but one. Her skin was smooth, but hardly unmarked. In fact, it was more marked than not, covered in sinuous black designs, so black that her skin seemed pure white by comparison, and so much that all but her face were covered in the disgusting black designs.

And Kira recognized them. She glanced briefly at her own palms, both of which had a similar marking on them, black as night and as shameful as a scar. When she glanced back up, Demetria was standing next to her bent forwards slightly, her large breasts swaying. Her gorgeous violet eyes were fixed on Kira's palms.

"I've never seen one like that." She snatched Kira's hand before the girl could pull away, and looked at it closer. "Amazing, truly amazing. What did this one do, I wonder? It's beautiful…"

"What are you?" Kira cried. And the woman was completely unharmed. After all the damage suffered from Benedictus and Sakura, she had not even a bruise or scar.

"A Shadow priestess, my dear girl. One who takes pleasure in using Shadow Words; but couldn't you tell?"

Kira pulled her arm away, looking anywhere but at the woman who so resembled her mother. "Let go! And put some clothes on!"

"Jealous?" the woman smirked. "That's unbecoming. You're young. You might be as gifted as me in the end." She cupped a breast and grinned, making Kira feel sick to her stomach. Kira turned roughly away, and seeing that she was not going to be getting any more fun out of the situation, Demetria did too. She walked over to the edge of the bath and picked up a blood-red robe, which she slowly put on, as if tantalizing Kira to look again.

She did not.

"We have a very important meeting to attend to." Demetria swung around, observing the girl with annoyance. "We'd best be off now. I have other things to do."

"Where am I?" Kira asked, not moving.

"You'll find out, my pretty." Demetria grinned at her again. Kira felt even more ill. "How cute. I'd have thought you would have enjoyed being flattered." She laughed and sashayed past her, towards the door. "Come now, we don't want to keep him waiting."

"Why have you brought me here?"

"So many questions. I wanted to."

Growing frustrated, Kira snapped. "Why do you look like her?"

Demetria stopped before the door, and turned. "Like who?"

"My mother! Demi Wrynn! Why do you look like her? Why did you choose that form to take?"

Demetria regarded her, frowning. She knitted her brows in confusion, staring at Kira without saying anything, as if trying to remember the name. She shook her head, and recommenced smiling. "You too? I thought that old man was just senile. But you seem to think I look like someone else as well. Your mother, you say? Demi Wrynn? I had no idea! That man was luckier than he imagined, if she looked as good as I do. But you misunderstand." She displayed a sultry smile, her eyes narrowing. "I have looked like this since the day I was born. I have always been beautiful. I have never changed my form." She grinned. "And I'm not lying, now am I?" She chuckled, and stared for a moment to savor the last shred of hope flee from Kira's eyes. She wasn't lying, and Kira knew that much.

"Come now," Demetria said again, beckoning. "We must go. He is waiting…"

Kira followed her dumbly. She stared at the floor, because she didn't want to look at the woman who so resembled her mother—perhaps even _was_ her mother. In hindsight, it was rather stupid—she had no idea where she was being taken, and hardly noticed the halls they passed through—all as decorated and ornate as the last, some populated by dozens of red-dressed guards with the red flame of the Crusade emblazoned on their tabards, saluting as Lady Demetria passed. She was led through a pair of white doors, and down a long, red carpet that looked like a trail of blood in a room twice as big as the great hall of Castle Stormwind, up to another pair of doors, these ones made of gold. Demetria stopped briefly before them, allowing the two guards—fearsome giants of men, their faces covered by thick, cylindrical helmets—and into a circular room bigger than the last, although it contained only one person, though for good reason.

He was the biggest man Kira had ever seen: perhaps eight or nine feet tall, sitting back in a gargantuan golden throne. He was nearly dressed in full armor, and a cape of red silk that like a sanguine river flowed into a lake at his feet, which seemed as thick as tree trunks. A sword that looked as big as two men and thick as half of one rested near his right arm, and a shield that could have covered a doorway sat by his left. His eyes were big and reddish-brown and his hair was shining gold, and he had a clean trimmed beard. He possessed no girth, only solid muscle, easily visible beneath the pristinely white tabard he wore, on which a veritable forest fire was shown. In his left hand he held a chain, which was attached to two figures Kira immediately recognized.

She could not help shouting, "Kylia! Tsuwabuki!"

Kylia's eyes shined with relief at her call, and she made to move. "Lady Kira!" she cried. Tsuwabuki yipped and started to run. But the giant man's voice froze them both, even though it was not in their direction.

"Demetria," he rumbled, his voice filling the room. "You've brought another pet?"

"Your Holiness," she said softly, bowing. "Grand Crusader Dathrohan. She is more than just a pet—she's a useful one. She is Kira, daughter of Anduin Wrynn, and soon to be queen of the nation of Stormwind."

"And our greatest enemy," the giant said.

"Oh indeed. But who has the potential to become much more, as you know." She walked behind Kira and gave her a push. "Introduce yourself, dear girl. It's quite improper not to."

Kira stumbled forwards, hardly hearing Demetria. Her eyes were fixed on the man, wide and filled with horror. He stared back, his face a massive scowl and his eyes twin pits that burned almost red. Kira saw something in him so terrifying that it left her speechless. What was this man, if he was one at all? It was not madness like the Crusaders she had seen before, and quite different from Demetria's wickedness as well.

It was evil.

"You've noticed, brat?" Dathrohan said.

Kira stumbled back from the force of the man's words. She felt herself nod.

"She's interesting. How useful could she be?"

"Quite." Demetria said. "More than you could ever imagine, Your Holiness."

The Grand Crusader smiled. Kira shuddered. That was not a smile.

"Good, good. Has it been finished?"

"I know not, Your Holiness. I know not." She smiled, and turned. "But it will be ready in time, I assure you of that. The Ghost is overseeing it, and from what he has told me, they will definitely come."

"I have been told," Dathrohan said slowly, "that they went to Light's Hope. Why has it not been exterminated?"

"What reason do we have? They are useful for recruiting new members, especially ones who are suitably trained already."

"You seem to forget your own principles."

She smiled. "I don't feel like it. But I also like their colors. Grey and gold does much more for my skin, wouldn't you say?"

Dathrohan nodded. "It would suit your more. They will be destroyed in time, I suppose."

"They must," Demetria said. "The Argent Dawn slights our name, and that of the Light. Their very presence is like a pimple, and what is natural to do with pimples?"

Dathrohan grinned. "Pop them."

"That's one way. Smothering them in disinfectant is another, which I quite like more, and suits the analogy better than what you have said…though I mean no disgrace, Your Holiness."

"You never do," he said, frowning. "I rue the day I elected you as my right hand, Demetria."

"You have not yet even begun to, Your Holiness. I shall make sure of that." She spun around. "I have other matters to attend to. I will leave the pretty one here for you to speak with, Your Holiness—I'm sure you have much to talk about. If not, then you may do with her as you please."

Dathrohan scowled. "You dare say that to me, woman? I am the Grand Crusader—it is a given."

"Of course, Your Holiness." Her eyes shifted to Kira. "Behave, little princess. I'll meet with you soon again, and we can go over all the delightful things that are going to occur in the next few days. I guarantee you're going to have a lot of fun."

"Go," Dathrohan rumbled, banishing her with a hand. "And learn some respect, girl."

Demetria was gone before he could put his hand back down. Kira, Kylia, and Tsuwabuki were alone with the giant.

"You're clever, for getting it so quickly," he began. He sat forwards, resting his chin on his hands and smiling a little. His eyes seemed to glow a brighter red, and Kira felt a chill go through her. He seemed to grow even bigger, filling the massive room with his presence so that it became almost suffocating.

Kira took a shuddering breath. "It was not hard."

"You must be wondering why you are here."

"I…" she stuttered a little. "I don't know where 'here' is."

"Surely you must have some idea."

"Stratholme," she said. Dathrohan nodded, beginning to drum his fingers against his throne, making a loud thrum throughout the room.

"Ah," she said, breathlessly. "Why?"

"I do not know," Dathrohan said. "Which makes this very conversation pointless. She acts far too much on her manic personality that is healthy, wouldn't you say? You were supposed to remain in Stormwind to my knowledge—yet she has brought you here. This could both help and hurt my original plan, but it is far too early to say one or the either. But you must have more questions—go, ask, and I shall answer."

Kira was growing ever more confused. This man…thing…what was he doing? Trying to instill some semblance of trust, or to simply confuse and scare her even more? The latter being far more probable, she took that in mind and asked, "Where is Sakura?"

Dathrohan tilted his head. "Who?"

"The other girl you took. Sakura."

"How did you know she had been taken?"

"Lady Dem—that woman said something about it."

The giant shook his head. "Quite the mouth she has. She is like a child sometimes—quite eager to tell anyone a secret that they have just found out. I would despise her but she is too useful. But I quite like her personality as well—you may not think it, but we get along splendidly. The girl is safe for the moment. Unlike you she has a use here, even though like you, she was not supposed to be taken. However, I suppose another could not hurt."

"Another what?" Kira asked.

"Shinobi," he said. Kira's eyes grew wide. He knew of them?

"You find it surprising," he said. "But it is not. That world is no mystery to my kind. And its inhabitants have always been remarkably strong, even if they are just humans. They have not had a fraction of the history of this, and even then they are more developed than your own nation, and are steadily growing stronger."

"So why did you take her?" she asked.

"Really," he said. "You must be cleverer than that—I thought it would be easier to see than my true form. I certainly take greater care in keeping that a secret, and yet you got it right away. Just think, girl. It is not so difficult to understand."

Kira stared at him, trying to work out what he was trying to say. It came to her all of a sudden, which registered as a gasp and a look of horror, which made the Grand Crusader smile so wide that it could have measured a foot across.

It made perfect sense, Kira realized. How could she not have seen it?

"You are indeed clever. Perhaps you will have more use here than I thought. But I grow tired of this—a new battle must be waged. The Scourge grows restless, and I have not yet sent some of my men to die today. Leave me," he threw the chains that he held to the ground, so that they fell in front of Kira. "Take these two. I do not like bitches."

Tsuwabuki growled at the slight, but had the foresight not to attack. She padded towards Kira, where Kylia already was, and stood beside her while Kira recovered, gave a final look at the Grand Crusader, before gathering up the chains and leaving as quickly as she could. Kylia moved up next to Kira as she walked, and whispered in evident distress, "I'm sorry I w-was too weak."

Kira shook her head, but didn't answer.

The doors of gold fell open, revealing a large man completely dressed in red armor, with a horned helm quite different from any she had seen before.

"Come along," he rumbled, before bowing to the Grand Crusader.

His voice touched a distant cord in Kira's mind. She looked up at his covered face. She knew that voice from somewhere, far off, but could not make it out. From the corner of her eye, Kylia went bone-stiff again, staring at the man with widened eyes. She blurted softly, "Highlord Fordragon…"

"You will return to your room and wait until mistress comes for you again," he said, ignoring Kylia's outburst completely.

Kira nodded absently, and still clutching the chains of her friends, walked away from the chamber of the Grand Crusader, and away from the chilling presence within. She knew the truth now, and only wished she had some way of telling the others. They were going to a trap.

And once again she could do nothing at all.

* * *

"Three days have passed. Are you prepared?" Lord Maxwell Tyrosus said, standing before the three shinobi and their odd companions. He asked this because they did not look ready—Naruto was dirty and smelled strongly of sweat and blood, but was smirking in triumph; Sai was smiling too, but pleasantly, with a brush out and moving inside of his sketchbook; Fen was cleaning out an ear with his little finger, his other arm shaking in spasms whenever he touched his brain; Hisari stood ramrod straight, dressed back in armor and possessing her sword again, but with her eyes closed and her head slightly dipped; Myrdraxxis on the contrary looked quite ready, which was typical.

"Not in the least," Yamato said. "But we don't have any more time to wait. We'll have to make do as it is." He looked piercingly at the man. "I assume you'll have medics waiting for when we return?"

"Naturally. But don't expect to return for a week at the latest. You will find it quite difficult to leave Stratholme once you enter," Tyrosus said. "You have all the supplies you will need. The disinfectant is most important, especially if you are attacked by Scourge. It will drastically reduce your chances of contracting the plague if bitten or covered in spores. But there is always a chance, there is no cure for the Plague."

"Living proof right here," Fen said. "Or un-living I suppose."

"That joke sucked," Naruto said, shaking his head.

"Agreed," Myrdraxxis and Hisari intoned.

"Then I suppose there is nothing more to be said," Tyrosus said, as Fen sulked. "I wish you a safe return—may the Light bless you in your efforts."

Yamato bowed respectfully at the gesture, and everyone else bade goodbye. They left the hill and were soon back in the forest, the Light's Hope Chapel shrouded in plague fog and soon gone as if it had never been.

"We're heading northwest from now on. But we'll stick to the northernmost mountains," Fen said. "There's one more town to avoid, as well as a few towers—but if we stick mostly to the road and try to avoid the Plaguewood, we should be fine."

The next two days were even more hellish than the first few since they had arrived. Though Hisari kept them hidden from Scourge, they were in far greater numbers than ever before, and soon they began to see evidence of much larger ones. Monstrous footprints—looking vaguely human—were found crossing the dirt road at one point, along with multiple trails of greenish gore. Sometimes packs of ravenous zombies would appear before them, sniffing and snarling and dripping fluids, but still not seeing them, and would slowly move on in search of more prey, of which there was likely little. Days of this did nothing to wear down the fear these beings created. Naruto could not look at the ones with eyes, for fear of seeing what he had seen before in them. As they continued on their way, the landscape grew ever more distorted and vile. The giant mushrooms, once trees, were now the only things that populated the landscape. The ground was soft and fleshy and bled greenish ooze when ruptured, as if it in itself was a Scourge. The sky grew darker, the brownish clouds mixing with black and green, and very occasionally it began to rain. When it first started, Fen hissed at them to find the nearest shelter, and pulling on their masks even tighter, they fled to one of the mushrooms, as the sky cried black rain.

"That's pure liquefied Plague," said Fen. "No 'vaccine' will help prevent you from getting it in that form." He directed the three humans to inject themselves with the preventative substance as soon as they could; he didn't want any of them getting the Plague, especially before they had arrived.

So for nearly four hours they had stood beneath the mushroom, amidst the falling spores, and watched as the sky belched out black, and the earth swallowed it up just as quickly. The smell—like rotten flesh only a thousand times greater, stayed with them the rest of their journey. They were stuck in two more downpours on their way. Sai took every opportunity they to draw, keeping his smile firmly on his face. Hisari took that time to brood and be unsociable, which wasn't, in Naruto's opinion, much better than what she had done before, but at least some of the life had returned to her. They hadn't spoken since their talk, but Naruto didn't care. He knew she wanted to change, but hadn't even tried yet. He didn't know why, and that was making him angry.

His lack of communication with Tsuwabuki was another. He couldn't get an answer from the fox, nor could he use the techniques Rexxar had taught him to establish control. Every time he did, he seemed to hit a brick wall. Something was blocking him off. Fen said it was probably the plague-smog. It retained traces of cursed _chakra_ in it, and probably acted as away of sealing the Plaguelands off from just about anyone. Orcs using spirit familiars during the previous war had said as much, at least.

Fen seemed ever more uneasy, and would continually glance at the sky, as if searching for something. Naruto asked him why.

"If you see a floating building, let me know," he said, and wouldn't explain any more.

Naruto didn't, but from that point on did check the skies often, wondering what he was supposed to see. Was there supposed to be a building in the sky?

The brown fog darkened to nearly black as they neared Stratholme. The air began to grow hot and thick, as if a fire were near. Naruto could smell smoke and burning wood, and could hear distant sounds that were like cries and screams, yet were too distant to tell, and never lasted long enough for him to register them. They were like ghosts, appearing and disappearing at will, and they chilled Naruto as much as the walking Scourge, which grew ever more horrible and deformed as they neared the city, just as they grew more frequent. Soon the smell of burning flesh came into his nose, and he looked at Fen, asking if there were a fire near.

"Not for a long time," he said. "But that smell won't go away as long as we're here. Get used to it."

Naruto took a deep breath, and wiped sweat from his forehead. "Whaddya mean? It's hot as oven here, and smells like we're in one too! What's going on? I thought that city burnt down years ago!"

"Its body did," Fen said, slowly. "But its soul still does."

"Cities have souls?" Naruto asked.

"Why not?" Fen said. "If you think about it, cities are a lot like humans. They are often said as having the same emotion as its inhabitants, and they die just as easily as the people living within it. So why shouldn't they have souls? They might even be alive. This one is certainly more so than not."

"How's that?"

"It never rests, it consumes everything that goes in, and rarely lets anything come out. Its current inhabitants, you could say, represent its own "id" and "superego"—the Scourge and the Scarlet Crusade, each of whom desire to use it as they see fit. Sure its body is nearly gone, but its soul is still there, alive and probably burning in agony along with the thousands of people who burned with it, some of who still live there in one form or another. We're not going to a city; we're going to be eaten by a monster, and hope that we aren't digested before we've done what we need."

Though thoroughly confused, Naruto could tell Fen was not happy. He sped up a little to catch up with the Forsaken who had begun to take longer strides.

"We're going in there to destroy one of its two 'minds' and when and if we do, that isn't going to change anything. The Argent Dawn has good intentions, but even if we do assassinate the Grand Crusader, things are just going to get worse. The Scourge is going to rule Stratholme. That's bad," Fen said, turning to look at Naruto, who nodded hurriedly. "We might as well take out whoever is leading the Scourge there as well. Hell, we might as well go to Northrend and beat the Lich King himself. This whole mission is pointless; we should just go in and destroy the portal and leave, and screw the Argent Dawn and their stupid mission."

"We can't," said Yamato.

"Why not?"

"That's not how we work. We've taken the mission and so we'll follow it through until the end, regardless." Yamato looked back at the Forsaken. "We just do as the mission dictates—no more, no less. It is not our position to argue or think ahead—we're just the tool with which their will can be done."

"And even if it screws up Princess Kira's plans in the long run, you'll still do it?" Fen asked, coldly.

"Yes. But that isn't likely to happen, is it? The Scarlet Crusade is just as big an obstacle as the Scourge, from what I understand. We'll just be eliminating one problem before it can become an even bigger one. Whatever happens after that we'll deal with as it comes."

"Fine," said Fen, with a sigh. "But don't expect to come out of this unscathed."

"We never did," said Yamato. "No shinobi ever hopes to, especially on assassinations. Don't worry about it. We'll get by."

"Right," said Fen, and said no more.

The smell quickly became unbearable, even through the masks. The heat grew ever more stifling, as if they were walking into a furnace. The ground became charred and black, like charred flesh. Soon, they heard the distant sounds of civilization as ghostly as the screams that intermixed with them; one moment Naruto thought her heard the jovial shouts of friends to one another meeting by some chance in the street, or the charismatic bellows of merchants attempting to sell their wares to unwilling customers in a busy marketplace—but then it was gone, replaced by a distant, tortured scream or a soft whisper beside his ear or a faint breath on his neck. The fog sometimes formed shapes that disappeared when they got closer, or emaciated, skeletal faces would appear right in front of Naruto's in the blink of an eye, and be gone in the next. Sometimes he would feel a grip on his leg, which would start him violently and he would turn only to find a muddy handprint on his pant leg. Sometimes they would walk over fields of bone, crushing skulls or snapping leg bones or rib cages with each step. Naruto jumped and twitched at each new terror that assaulted them. His heart jumped with each cold voice, each ethereal form that showed itself to him, and then vanished with a quick, childish giggle, or a distant but soft sobbing that would taper off into the air as they walked. Sometimes he would feel like he was totally alone, even though Yamato or Sai would be just a foot away, it was so dark. They heard fleshy footsteps constantly within earshot but out of sight, as if something were following them. Yamato would often disappear for a while, searching the perimeter for anything harmful to them, but would always report nothing.

The horizon glowed a distant orange, as if the sun were constantly setting. Fen told them it was the city with its burning soul. It grew nearer and nearer each step they took, until finally they reached the edge of a rotten lake. It was filled with corpses—rotting and skeletal, of men, women, children and animals; some impaled on stakes, others wallowing in the sludge near the shore, the skin half-rotted from their faces, their mouths half grinning and half despairing. Naruto tried not to look at them. Their glassy, mirror-like eyes were the same as the Scourge.

Stratholme loomed before them, only an hour's distance away. The corona of orange light that surrounded it offered the only light to them at that point. It was perpetual night, from this point on, said Fen. The plague-smog above them in the sky was so thick here that it was even physically impossible to get through it without dying. So Yamato stopped them, and turned.

"We split up from here. Each group will approach the city in a different direction. The assassination team will go from the west, towards the Scarlet Bastion directly. The portal team will come in through the south, and make your way west to the Bastion as quickly as possible, without being detected, and enter that way. Find the portal as quickly as you can, destroy it, and leave. Don't do anything else, or wait for us. We'll meet up near here."

Naruto, Sai and Fen all nodded. They were part of the portal team. Yamato, Myrdraxxis and Hisari were the assassination team. Yamato saw their agreement, and gave them a quick half-smile, before nodding to his team. "Good luck, all of you. Don't die."

"Same to you," Fen threw back. Yamato's team disappeared into the black fog, their footsteps being swallowed by a series of distant cries from the Scourge. Fen turned to his two teammates.

"Well, let's go. We have the fortune of being quite close to the Scourge side, so we need to get going quickly. You guys taken your medicine yet?"

Naruto nodded, patting his weapons pouch. "That green stuff ain't medicine."

"True, but it's the best non-prescription deodorant you'll ever have."

Naruto found a little will to smile, which was killed by looking at Sai's eternal grin, before they began to run. They ran through the stretch of land that passed through the marshes in front of Stratholme, hearing the dead whisper as they passed, as they stumbled further and further into the darkness, and towards a living hell, still on earth.

"Let's just hope," said Fen. "That there aren't any Scourge outside. If we can get in without being seen, it'll be fairly simple from then on."

The gates to the city came into view a short while later. All three skidded to a stop.

Sai smiled. "I believe there's a term to be used here, is there not? I believe its 'knock on wood'?"

A monstrous figure, ten feet tall, carrying a big, bloody chain and a huge, gory meat cleaver, slowly thundered towards them, with beady eyes made of many different colors stitched together, a mouth gaping wide made of three jaws together, and a large metal rod sticking from its skull, buzzing with electricity with each step. It was over ten feet tall, and about half as wide. Each step shook its girth and spilled ichor onto the ground, which created a luminous trail back towards the city.

"It's a shame I don't have any wood, then," Fen said, swallowing.

The beast had already seen them, but it didn't change its pace. It instead raised its cleaver, touching it to the electric rod on its head. The lightning blossomed into it, creating a miniature storm above the beast, which let out the wettest roar Naruto had ever heard, spraying the ground with green ichor.

"_KEIN ENTRINNEN RAMSTEIN!"_

* * *

Done. Not much to say after this. I'll try to have the chapter out as soon as possible, so I can explain to those who don't know why that last line is there…which is totally original…I swear. (Everyone's probably got it. But if you can tell me specifically from what, I'll give you a cookie.)

Well, that's it. Hope it was entertaining!

See you soon, I've already started the next chapter!

General Grievous

_**Bingo Book:**_

**Grand Crusader Saiden Dathrohan (Humanoid?)(Boss): No description yet.**

**Lady Demetria (Humanoid)(Boss): No description yet.**

**Ramstein das Gorger (Undead)(Elite): No description yet, other than it speaks German, for some odd reason.**


	17. Ramstein the Gorger

_Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft, but the Lixherians of Lixheria have quite a claim on both, but I am fiercely contesting them and have so far destroyed their supply lines and raped and pillaged many of their villages, and enslaved many of their people, for the purpose of turning them into mindless slaves to my will. Eventually all of Lixheria will be under my power, and Naruto and World of Warcraft shall be mine! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

'_How long is mommy going away?' little Kira asked, rubbing one of her eyes sleepily. She had awoken up as early as possible to see her mother off. Next to her, equally tired but trying to hide it more, her new handmaiden Kylia stood. Kira liked Kylia a lot and they had a lot in common. She was a bit quiet, but laughed at all of Kira's jokes, and had some good ideas for games, and was very good at hide and seek, and loved her mother just as much as Kira did. Kira was therefore quite happy that her mother had brought Kylia to play, as before she hadn't had anybody but some of the servant's children to talk to, and sometimes they weren't very nice._

'_Only a few weeks,' Lady Demi said, bending over and touching Kira on the brow, smiling. 'I promise.'_

_Kira smiled back. She loved her mother's smile. It was beautiful like a pretty stone and shined like one too, but was sweet like the candy that her father bought on occasion when she had been exceptionally good. There were several different ones as well, but Kira always got the one that was just for her. It was like a present that Kira could get any time of the day, every day, whenever she wanted. It was always just for her, it was "Kira's smile". _

'_You be good for your father, and help Kylia get used to the castle, alright? I don't want to return and here that you've been sneaking out of sight, and wandering around the castle again. Kylia,' she turned her sweet smile to Kylia, but Kira saw that it changed slightly, and was glad. She liked Kylia, but not even Kylia could have _her _smile. It just wasn't right. 'Keep her out of trouble. You're older, so she should listen to you. And protect her as well. She can be quite the scaredy-cat.'_

_Kylia nodded, blushing intensely, as Kira puffed out her cheeks and vociferously denied the accusation. She had never had a person smile at her like that before. She liked it a lot. She would do anything for this woman, even if she had only known her for a few short days. She was the nicest person Kylia had ever met. She must be the nicest person in the world, Kylia thought. To take in somebody as useless as her, it only made sense. And she wasn't going to fail this nice woman. She was going to protect Kira forever!_

'_Thank you,' Demi said, ruffling the girl's dark hair. 'I'll miss you both very much. I want you both to know that I love you, very, very much. Kira, you're my most precious daughter, the light of my life—I cannot wait to come back, and see your smiling face.'_

_Kira preened, and she hugged her mother with everything she had. Demi smiled and returned the hug, and planted a few kisses on the girl's scalp, and stroked her hair lovingly. Kylia stood, a little awkwardly, to the side, trying to avoid staring. Demi noticed this, chuckled, and gathered the other girl into her arms, hugging her too. _

'_You too are so very precious to me. I love you both so much.'_

'_Love you too mommy,' Kira said, her face planted in Demi's robes, soaking them with tears. 'Miss you.'_

'_I'll miss you too, Kira. Be a good girl, and a good princess. I know you'll be the best.'_

_Kira nodded tearfully again, and she buried her head in deeper to the woman's warm body. She clutched tightly, suddenly not wanting her mother to go at all. She wanted her to stay and be with her, and not with that scary big man. She wanted her to stay with Kylia, too. _

_Kylia wanted the same. She couldn't bear to lose her goddess so soon. She wanted Demi to stay, and smile at her more. She had to._

_Both girls broke into crying fits, clutching every tighter to the priestess. Demi smiled sadly, and continued to hug them until their sobs died away, becoming sniffles and hiccups, and then she slowly set them down, and looked into both of their faces._

'_You mean the world to me. I will not rest until I am back here with the two of you. But your mother has to do this. She has to.' She smiled at each of them individually. They could not help but smile back. Demi's smile was highly infectious._

'_Do you understand?' she asked softly. They both nodded, Kylia at once, and Kira more slowly and stubbornly. _

'_Don't go, mommy,' Kira said._

'_I have to, little princess,' Demi said, stroking Kira's hair again. 'I must. I am sorry. But I will come back. I know you. You are strong. I will only be gone for a few weeks. Then I will be back, forever. You'll never have to worry again.'_

_Kira stared back into her mother's eyes. The woman was kneeling right down next to her, so their eyes were level. It was something that Demi had never done before, and Kira didn't really like it. She quailed below her mother, and looked up into her eyes._

'_O-okay,' Kira said. 'Promise?'_

_Demi smiled, and kissed her daughter on the forehead._

'_Promise.' _

* * *

"Mistress…is she really Lady Demi?" Kylia asked softly, after almost half and hour's silence within Kira's well-furnished room. "Is she really your mother?" Kylia, though desperate to know, asked the question in a barely audible whisper, not wanting to offend her mistress. Though Lady Demi had only been in her life for a few short days, Kylia had come to worship the woman, or at least her memory, and thought of her as fondly as she did Kira. And after seeing Lady Demetria commit such cruel acts, she could not believe that the Scarlet Oracle looked so much like her.

"No," Kira said, firmly. "That isn't my mother. She just looks like her, but she isn't. My mother…" She shook her head. "Wouldn't do something like that. She wouldn't join the Scarlet Crusade."

Kylia nodded, appearing slightly relieved. She began to absently scratch Tsuwabuki's ears, who lay on the bed next to her, apparently asleep. She suddenly looked at Kira. "K-Kira, do you think we can contact Naruto using Tsuwabuki's bond?"

Kira glanced at her. "Tsuwabuki would've already thought of that, but I don't believe she can. Though I can't understand her like Naruto, she told me that she can't get in contact with him—something's blocking the bond. It must be that woman again—or perhaps even the Grand Crusader, himself."

"What is he…?" Kylia asked. "You said something to him, and he believed you'd figured something out. What was it about him that you saw?"

"He is not human, and that is strange enough as it is. An inhuman that is leading the Scarlet Crusade?" She shook her head. "Quite ironic, isn't it? All of those people are following the very thing that they despise most. But other than that, I don't know what he is. I feel like I've felt something very similar to him, but I can't say what or when." Rubbing her head, and then running a hand through her hair, she sat down in one of the comfortable leather chairs near her bed. "It feels so familiar…"

"But it explains everything, doesn't it?" Kylia asked.

"Yes," Kira said, nodding. "We now know why the Scarlet Crusade is like it is. He has something to do with it—I know it! Whatever he is, he's responsible for the corruption—he's responsible for everything that the Scarlet Crusade has done—for the genocide, the slaving, even the death of my father! I know it's him. It's both of them…it has to be."

"So what do we do?" Kylia began fiddling with the chain around her neck, which she still hadn't been able to remove. She looked desperately at the girl. "How do we escape?"

Kira shook her head. "I don't know. We'd have to fight our way through all of those Crusaders, as well as the Grand Crusader, Lady Demetria, and that man—Highlord Fordragon. Then we'd have to get through the city and the Plaguelands alive." She clutched her head and groaned, putting her head in her hands. "What _do_ we do? I can't think of anything other than just doing all of that. But that seems impossible, doesn't it?"

Kylia didn't say anything. "Perhaps if we find Miss Sakura…?"

"We'll have to do that, yes," Kira said. "But she could be anywhere."

"The dungeons…?" Kylia asked. "They wanted something from her…perhaps that was where she was taken?"

"Maybe," Kira said, "but we don't know for sure. Maybe we can get Lady Demetria to tell us when she comes back. She seems to treat me better. She also likes to talk. She's smart, but she'll let something slip, especially because she seems insane enough. Besides, she'd probably enjoy seeing us try to escape."

"So," Kylia said. "We wait? Is t-that all we can do?"

Kira nodded, not meeting her handmaiden's eyes.

"For now, yes. We'll wait and see."

* * *

Ramstein liked taking walks.

Even with its simple mind, a walk could be enjoyed, and allowed the creature to find annoying little things that ran and screamed and gave it a chance to swing its cleaver. Anything that allowed it to swing its cleaver was alright in Ramstein's book, and simply staying inside the city sometimes didn't allow that. Besides, when out, Ramstein could sometimes go against its master's wishes (something that gave it a guilty sense of pleasure) by using its cleaver on anything that moved, even if it were its own comrades (a term used loosely, as Scourge had no concept of camaraderie).

Ramstein was quite pleased when it not only found a bunch of things that were not its comrades but that moved and even screamed! Ramstein would have clapped its hands in childish delight had all three of them not been occupied by some sort of weapon. The two attached to its shoulders, where arms should be, held a large cleaver and a big wooden mallet covered in spikes, a ghastly perversion of a meat tenderizer. The one attached to the middle of the abomination's upper back held a hook and chain, and was useful in gutting people as well as scratching Ramstein's back. All three weapons were heavily laden with gore, as it never bothered to clean them off, and probably didn't have the mental faculty to do so, anyways. He lumbered towards his new prey, very slowly—experience had taught it that moving fast made the screamy things scatter quicker, and made them harder to catch. Ramstein was also hungry, and if it killed them quicker, preferably in one or two blows, it'd be able to eat quicker, even if it wouldn't be as much fun.

For Ramstein valued, like all Scourge, its food over its fun.

What a great walk this had turned out to be!

Fen took a few steps back from the beast as it slowly clomped towards them, its mouth hanging open in a stupid, dog-like grin expressing two simplest emotions of joy and hunger. He shivered at the sight of the metal rod sticking from its head, glittering with electricity. It gave the creature's identity away instantly, as almost no abominations possessed such a unique adornment. But its style of speech and its announcement of its own name also gave it away as something of a legend among the Forsaken.

Ramstein the Gorger was responsible for thousands of deaths of Forsaken when they had still been human. It was solely responsible for creating at least a fifth of the current population of the Undercity. But it was also responsible for destroying many of Sylvanas' forces as well, on failed attempts to conquer Stratholme. This beast had even slain Myrdraxxis' former teacher, the human Ranger, Nathanos Blightcaller, before he had become the Champion of the Forsaken.

How were they expected to face one of the strongest Scourge at the entrance? If they got past this, what would be in store for them next? The Lich King himself, come to pay a visit?

He glanced at Naruto and Sai, both of which knew nothing of Ramstein's history with the Forsaken, and saw that Naruto (as Sai had only two emotions—happiness and apathy) was staring with not only horror and disgust, but confusion as well.

"What language is that thing speaking?" Naruto wondered aloud, even as Ramstein blundered closer and closer.

"Old Common, from a northern tribe of humans," said Fen, quickly, as he dug into his robes and fished out some of his knives—gleaming thorium blades that had cost him a fortune but had served him well enough since. "Before the languages converged. Now, before that thing gets any closer, got any more fun facts you wanna know?"

Naruto blushed a little. "Sorry." He turned back, set his face, and drew his sword while Fen shook his head.

"I wouldn't do that. See all that electricity? It's going to hurt if you hit that thing with your _metal _sword."

Naruto grinned. "Maybe. We'll see."

Fen frowned at him, but said nothing, as Ramstein was almost on top of them.

Rearing back, the abomination threw the hook and chain aglow with electricity, at the three companions. It swung—and missed—all three by a hair's breadth, as they ducked beneath it simultaneously. The hum of the electrified blade still ringing in his ears, Naruto took off, throwing himself at the beast with all his speed. Long before the abomination had apparently realized Naruto was not with the two other screamy flesh bags, the boy was by its left leg, his sword humming with light, almost clear, blue _chakra_. But even as he swung it he did not hear Fen shouting from behind, or see Ramstein's foot, which in a blur of motion came and up slammed into him before he could finish one swing. The jarring force, combined with a shock of nearly 500,000 volts, blasted Naruto back a dozen yards, his body rigid and motionless. He rolled twice, finally resting on his back, his body shaking a little, paralyzed by the shock.

"Shit!" Fen snapped. "That idiot! Go get him," he roared to Sai. "And make sure he's alive!" The boy nodded, and ran back to where Naruto lay, as Ramstein howled in delight at its first victory.

"_ZERSTÖREN" _it roared. It grinned and moved towards Fen, much faster than before. Fen suddenly knew why this thing had been able to kill even Nathanos Blightcaller—it was fast, and very good at hiding it. Crackling with energy, Ramstein's cleaver sliced the air before Fen, who dodged by using _Blink_, teleporting himself back to where Sai and a slowly recovering Naruto were. No longer deciding to be careful, Ramstein followed, taking three huge strides to nearly cover the distance. The hook and chain came again, with Ramstein bellowing as it did. The hook gouged a large chunk of earth from the ground where it struck; but it hit nobody, Sai having dragged Naruto out of the way and Fen having moved himself, while throwing all of the knives he held, making a seal as he did.

'_Arcane Enchant!'_

The knives bored into Ramstein's flesh, and then exploded in a quick succession of purple flashes, engulfing the abomination and making it rear back, howling. "_MEIN HERZ BRENNT!"_

Fen shook Naruto's body. "Naruto! You alright?"

"Fine," the boy mumbled, finally managing to sit up, breathing heavily. His body still shook, and was painfully stiff. He had never been electrocuted quite that powerfully before. He checked himself over, finding that his sword was missing. He glanced around in the gloom, but could find nothing near him. He must have dropped it after being struck. He cursed, and looked at Fen. "You didn't tell me that thing was so fast!"

"I didn't know," Fen said, watching, eternally breathless, as Ramstein recovered, its body hardly damaged at all. "You can't treat him lightly, kid. He's a lot stronger than you think, and is a seasoned pro at killing things. I don't expect we'll be able to fully destroy him right now, and I don't want to try."

"What? Why not?"

"Unless I'm mistaken, we're supposed to get in and destroy something else. If we stick around here, it's going to be a lot longer before we can stop this thing for good. We should probably just distract it and—"

"No way!" Naruto snapped. "I'm not going to let that bastard get away with kicking me, and it'll be much easier if we beat him now, anyways! He'll probably follow us, and if he does, he'll bring the whole city after us!"

"So what do you suggest?" Fen snapped. "That doesn't involve summoning something bigger, that is? That won't work, and will just bring the city after us anyways!"

The thought hadn't occurred to him, but Fen was right, so Naruto shook it away. "We gotta find my sword!" he said, glaring into the darkness. "I'll take care of the rest! You guys distract it!"

"No!" Fen shouted, but Naruto was already moving. So was Ramstein.

"_SPIEL MIT MIR!"_ Ramstein thundered, its third arm beginning to swing the hook and chain around and around, making a halo of lightning above it. Ramstein looked up, grinning like a deformed child at its creation, before glaring at Fen and Sai, the only ones left to glare at. The crackling electricity, which sparkled through its clouded, multicolored eyes as much as in the air above it, enhanced the evident delight in the abomination's face. Ramstein then released the chain, which took the storm with it.

"_FEUER FREI!"_

Fen raised his hands, after going through a long series of hand seals, creating a bubble of _chakra_ around him and Sai. The boy had calmly removed his sketchbook and a single brush from his pouch, and seemed oblivious to the danger they were now in. While Sai flipped the pages of his book to locate what sketch he wanted, Ramstein howled in fury as his chain ricocheted off Fen's bubble, and fell harmlessly to the ground, not noticing that it had taken all of Fen's strength to keep the bubble intact. So Ramstein jerked it back, and prepared to try again. Sai then made a hand seal and released a cloud of black ink into the already black world.

The artistry that Sai had unleashed swallowed Ramstein's lower half in a sea of living sketched outlines, stopping it from its second attempt. It took Fen a moment to recognize what Sai had drawn.

"You're pretty ironic for somebody with no sense of humor." Fen unconsciously nodded his approval.

"Thank you," Sai said. He was still smiling.

The black swarm—really a horde of expertly painted zombies, created from Sai's constant attention to his environment—bit and slashed and tore away chunks of Ramstein's leg flesh, making him roar and kick and swipe with its hammer and its cleaver and its hook. But because, like Fen, it couldn't see them, only feel when they struck, it couldn't attack accurately.

The damage they did was almost negligible, however—the layers of borrowed flesh that made up Ramstein's body, the finest of Kel'Thuzad's stock, made from warriors of all types: orc, human, tauren, ogre and even elf, was not easily pierced. It could absorb intense amounts of damage, making it easily one of Ramstein's most dangerous traits. Nothing had ever pierced its flesh beyond the first three or four layers, and there were eight in total before they reached its muscles, vitals and bones. Each layer was also heavily saturated with electricity, which became more and more intense as one traveled inwards, towards the source of its power—a living battery that was essentially the abomination's heart, which could be anywhere in the creature's body, as it was nothing more than a tapestry of body parts not its own. Nothing that created an abomination was its own. That was what made them the most difficult Scourge to kill—they had little attachment to any of it. Some seemed to exhibit pain, like Ramstein himself, but they didn't really feel it, though it wasn't clear why they pretended to.

Perhaps they felt more real when they showed pain. Nobody could really say, not even their creator.

Kicking at its attackers wildly, its feet stained in black ink, Ramstein then charged at Fen and Sai again, deciding to go for the source and abandon its play-acting. Fen emitted a burst of flame from his mouth, but Ramstein swung its cleaver through the flames, and would have chopped Fen in two had he not _Blinked _away. Ramstein swung its mallet at Sai this time; but Sai nimbly dodged, sailing above the incapacitating tremor caused by the impact of the mallet on the ground, his brush working furiously again. Fen prepared another _jutsu_ from behind, and noticing this, Ramstein went for Sai, recognizing—a truly remarkable feat for an abomination, but expected of one of the best—that the shinobi would find it difficult to dodge in mid-air. It aimed the hook at Sai, and threw it upwards in a flash of electricity. Sai made a seal, making the ink leap from his page and form a wide, thick shield in front of him; but Ramstein's hook broke through almost instantly, just as Fen finished his _jutsu_.

As if snatched by some invisible hand, Sai was wrenched to the side at the last second, avoiding instant death. But Ramstein, burbling with laughter, whipped the chain into Sai's stomach and propelling him with extra force into Fen, sending both into the ground.

Ramstein turned and grinned at them, saying and proving that abominations were not below joking: "_MANN GEGEN MANN!"_

Sai heaved some blood from his mouth, as he rolled off Fen and clutched his stomach. He could barely move the pain was so immense. Fen was already getting to his feet, as Ramstein moved to attack again. Fen grabbed Sai by the arm, and _Blinked _backwards and away. Ramstein followed like a loyal dog with rabies.

"Shit," Fen said aloud. "Where the hell is he?" He looked around, but could see nothing in the gloom, and smelling Naruto was impossible, with the deodorant slime he had consumed. "Sai," he said. "Get up, we're making a run for it."

The shinobi was already standing, his smile back firmly in place on his lips. "Are you sure? Naruto-kun may get mad."

"I'm not worried about that," Fen snapped. "I'm more worried about my un-life."

"Oh," said Sai. "How sad." But he continued smiling. "Perhaps Naruto-kun isn't as I expected him to be."

Ramstein attacked. Fen and Sai were already running as the hook whipped past them, tearing away a massive chunk of earth. Ramstein followed, easily keeping up with his massive strides and relentless pursuit of food and fun. It began to swing the chain around again, calling forth another storm above its head, while it raised both its other arms in preparations for two mighty swings, grinning with stupid finality.

Sai suddenly pivoted, turning around to face the charging abomination. His sketchbook was out. Fen didn't even know he had stopped running, for his sockets caught sight of a blur of motion from the side, part of which glowed a pale blue. He spun as well.

Sai had begun making seals, still clutching the sketchbook, staring at the abomination as one of its arms swung down. He was almost finished. If he—

Something passed by his ear—a swift gust of air, with the hum of metal moving through it. For a brief instant, a figure barred his path, his back to Sai, clutching a glowing _kodachi_. Uzumaki Naruto leapt up and carved a streak of blue through Ramstein's elbow, severing it cleanly through, and then kicked off the falling arm, driving the blade into the abomination's chest. Ramstein howled, and thrust his other arm down at Naruto, as the boy cut a swath across Ramstein's chest, all the way up to its right shoulder, where the blade burst from the flesh, Naruto roaring in triumph.

"Take that, bastard!" he shouted. "That's for kicking me!"

Ramstein snarled, and threw the hook at Naruto, who cut it in half with one strike, hissing as the lightning arced painfully around him burning his arms, before fizzling out as the blade hit the ground. Naruto sped forwards, taking two steps along the abomination's shoulder, using one cut to remove its third arm as easy as a knife cutting pie. The second blow—one clean cut—sliced through eight layers of flesh, then bone, and finally grey matter, to apparently destroy one of the greatest abominations ever created with a makeshift lobotomy.

Ichor streamed from the four wounds on Ramstein's body, and the abomination, quite perplexed for a moment as to why it no longer had the ability to move, as most of its brain lay strewn across its back and the dark ground beneath it, remarked stupidly, "_MUTTER?"_

It then slumped, and fell like a severed tree, creating a loud but final thump on the wet ground, spilling the rest of its borrowed brains in a gooey puddle of dark green.

Naruto let out a breath, and he nearly dropped his sword as he released the technique, his sword fading back to its normal luster. His hand quivered from built up excitement—as if he couldn't believe it was over already—and from the control it had taken to keep the blade formed. But it was over, and awash with pride in his victory—something he hadn't felt in a while— he felt the need to comment to the lifeless sack of meat, bones and ichor on his win.

"That's what you get when you mess with me."

"I haven't heard that one before," Fen said, walking over, quite stunned. "You do know that you just destroyed one of the strongest abominations ever, don't you? And that it was completely anticlimactically done."

Naruto puffed out his cheeks in annoyance. "Whaddya want me to do? Do it over? It's dead, isn't that good?"

Fen nodded, and shook himself. "I suppose. I just wished it were a little more…tactfully done. It could've done without the stupid cheesy one-liner afterwards. It could've been less like a crappy action story, I suppose. As much as I like Mikhail Cryton, it just doesn't seem right in real life, you know?"

"But I like those," Naruto said. "Those are the best part of winning."

"Can't you make them more creative?"

Naruto shook his head, annoyed. "You're just jealous."

Fen shrugged, and looked again at Ramstein. He couldn't believe it. He knew Naruto was good, but do have a technique _that_ devastating in his arsenal was incredible. If he was able to cut through layers of hardened flesh and electricity with such ease, this might go well enough after all. He grinned at the boy. "Nice trick, though. Looks like those days of training paid off, eh?"

"Yep," Naruto said, swelling again with pride. He sheathed his sword, which had long stopped glowing. What he didn't want to say was how much effort it had taken him to keep that technique going. Control, as ever, was not his best trait. It was like tensing a muscle, and trying to do that for too long was impossible.

"Well done," said Sai, smiling. "You're just like I expected you to be in a proper fight."

Naruto stared at him. "How'd you expect me to be?"

"Dashing," the smiling shinobi said. "Perhaps we should get on with the mission."

"Yeah," said Fen. "Come on fairy-boy. Let's go."

They left with Naruto protesting that he was anything but a fairy boy. The darkness closed in on them again, as they went towards the now awfully close city, which seemed even brighter than before—as if pleased with their actions.

The night went deathly quiet for a while.

Ramstein lay motionless, until long after they were gone, when its eyes opened, and its intact battery-heart began to beat again. That was the remarkable thing about abominations—because their bodies were entirely borrowed, they felt no qualms in getting as injured as possible, because it didn't hurt. The only way to destroy an abomination—especially one as powerful as Ramstein—was to destroy its battery, which Naruto had not. The hulk got to its feet, slowly, scooping up a handful of its brains (which it didn't particularly need any longer) and slopping it back into its skull. It was grinning at the city, now thoroughly enthralled by its most recent visitors. Its master was going to be as happy as he, soon enough.

It grinned again, and then shouted, shattering the quiet forevermore.

"_IST DOCH DIE SCHONSTE STADT DER WELT!"_

* * *

Somewhere within that beautiful city, Sakura turned at the sound of a door opening, and so did Interrogator Alcond. The creepy man's eyes grew wide with delight, while Sakura's closed with despair, as the woman walked into the room. Lady Demetria's gaze had settled on switching from amusement to arousal as she stared at Sakura, walking until she was but inches from Sakura's naked body. She looked at the girl for a long time, continuing to stare until Sakura grew uncomfortable enough to speak, which wasn't long.

"Can I help you?"

"Well I don't know," said Demetria. "Probably, but I'll have to look a bit longer to ascertain that. You're quite cute when you're helpless you know that? I can almost forget how much pain you caused me."

"I hope it was a lot," Sakura said. She wondered why, in God's name, she was acting like Naruto in this situation. Why didn't she just shut up and take it? Being around Naruto had reawakened that little side of her that liked to act on impulse, even if it was detrimental to her health. She suddenly hated her inner desires. They had probably got her into this situation anyways.

"Quite," said Demetria, no longer smiling. Her eyes switched to annoyance, bordering on murderous rage. "So I'll pay that back a million fold. Interrogator, dear, bring me one of those tools on the table."

The man, who had been looking torn between speaking up in Sakura's defense and grinning delightedly at her impending torture, blinked and looked at the one of the tables, laden with nearly every violent tool one could imagine, of which nearly all had yet to be washed from their previous uses.

"Which one, milady, mistress, demonic bitch?" He asked, kneading his hands together and half-grinning and half-sneering at the woman.

Unfazed by the man's insult, Demetria smiled again, quite innocently. "A stabby thing, first. We'll move on to crushy and screwy things later."

The man whooped in joy, and grabbed the first thing within his reach—a nail as big as his own forearm, about as thick as his thumb. He handed it to the woman, who rammed it into Sakura's thigh.

Sakura screamed so loud it must have been heard throughout the bastion. The pain was excruciating, particularly because Demetria had rammed the nail on a particularly sensitive bundle of nerves, a pressure point, on the inside of the upper thigh. She nearly passed out, her entire body convulsing in pain and then seizing up as if she were paralyzed. She couldn't see straight; her vision bucked and twisted in every direction, and the only thing that she could see properly was Demetria herself, sometimes upright sometimes tilted in one direction, sometimes split into several identical images, each one smiling with cruel satisfaction.

"Oh dear," said Demetria. "Did that hurt? I'm sorry, but not really. Would you like another?"

Sakura's vision returned slowly, and though her leg still roared with pain, she began to adapt. A horrible smell entered her nose, and she realized she had vomited. Demetria was already holding another tool in her hand, a bone saw. Sakura suddenly wished she didn't have comprehensive knowledge of nearly every surgical tool in existence in her world. She swallowed.

"S-stop," she whispered.

"No," said Demetria, holding the saw against Sakura's right arm and took two powerful strokes, cutting all the way to the bone, flooding her hands with Sakura's hot, sticky blood. This time Sakura did pass out. She was awoken just a second later with a touch from Demetria, which made Sakura feel as awake and alert as if she had been sleeping for hours. Demetria greeted her with a smile, stepping back, and leaving the bone saw in Sakura's shoulder.

"Hurt?" she asked, in a sing-song.

"Y-yes," Sakura said closing her eyes, not wanting to picture the saw or the nail.

"I'm glad," said Demetria. "Do you know what I just did?"

"N-no."

"I used a special ability of mine. I call it a _shadow pulse_. It's a tiny bit of _chakra_ that I can use to gain control of your entire body, and all its functions—isn't that amazing?"

"Yes," Sakura said. She didn't want to speak, but nodding would cause the saw to move, and bring more pain.

"It's only effective for one time, though," Demetria continued, and touched Sakura again. "But its effects are almost always permanent. You probably won't be able to go to sleep for a while, if ever again. This one I just put into you took away the pain in your arm and leg, didn't it? The brain's amazing! I can do this with anything—I can make even the smallest desire in somebody grow big and strong. Do you see?"

"Yes."

"Do you?" Demetria asked, and touched Sakura one more time. "This one is going to be the clincher. I'm going to magnify that tiny little impulse you have—that tiny, tiny impulse way in the bottom of your subconscious—which you may not even _know _you have—that admires me. Almost everyone has it, you know. On some level, you do admire me, especially for my power, or perhaps my beauty or something else. So I'm going to make that big until it completely governs everything else you do. You will admire me so much that everything I say you will do without question. How does that sound?"

Sakura didn't answer.

"I like that answer," Demetria said. "Welcome."

It was not like what Sakura had expected. It came as a simple thought. She's not that bad, is she? It was an annoying thought, one that Sakura immediately shoved out of the way. But it came back. She's beautiful, and powerful. No she isn't, Sakura thought, shaking her head, glad to be free of the pain. Focus on that. The pain. Dammit, no wonder she had taken it away! Look at those breasts! I wish I had those. Then maybe he'd pay attention. That hair too! God, if she had that hair, nobody would be able to look away. It was silky and smooth and unbelievable. Who cared about hair, though? She didn't. She was proud of her hair and her body. Her breasts were small, but they were easy to deal with, and she had long ago (having accepted they would never get much bigger) decided that big breasts would just be a hassle. But what about those lips, and that figure? No man would be able to resist those lips, or that butt, or the way she walked. God, she was really beautiful, wasn't she? Gorgeous beyond belief, and she wasn't that bad, either. She was actually kind of engaging, and kind of funny, as well. And smart—she had to be smart, didn't she? Smart enough to come up with a technique like that. I mean you had to be a genius to think of a technique that gave you control over a person's bodily functions, right?

Wait. Of course you did. She herself was such a genius, wasn't she? She began to pool her_ chakra_. Though she could not form her hand seals, that didn't matter. She had enough control to just visualize the hand seals—it would take longer, but it would work, and she only had to do one thing. She began to recognize what it was doing. Though it was assaulting several places in her brain, it primarily affected the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex managed selection and execution of actions, and differentiation of good and bad. What Demetria's _shadow pulse_ was doing was distorting those differences, and attributing Demetria as the "best" possible thing within her memory stores. Demetria was doing nothing but distorting how Sakura's mind worked. It was simple. But it was mind control on a totally different level from what Sakura could imagine—almost like the _jutsu_ Sasori had used on Yura.

It would be permanent too.

But Sakura fought it. Even with all of the thoughts flying through her head, Sakura was able to activate her _Nouha Sayuu_ _jutsu_ with excruciating difficulty. But she could not keep it active for long. She lost her grip on it in her joy of getting it, and had a hard time getting it back, as desperation and fear arose in her. Demetria's _chakra_ was gradually fading, as the changes began to stop.

Sakura almost felt like stopping. Why bother?

Demetria's golden hair caught her eyes. It was beautiful, wasn't it? Shiny like solidified sunshine, something that you could stroke for hours in pure bliss.

Like his.

YOU IDIOT! STOP THAT BITCH!

She seized the gathered _chakra _and activated the _jutsu_, and removed Demetria's offending _chakra_ before it could distort anything else. Her mind went totally blank, and in that moment of clarity, she attempted to rectify the damage Demetria had done. She did it without thinking, knowing that if she did, she would feel horrified that she was tampering with her own emotions, that she was rewriting her own personality and beliefs. She would vomit later, but she didn't care. She had to stop it.

She had to.

The thoughts ebbed. She really wasn't all that pretty after all. Her breasts were, at best, _too _big, and probably fake as well. Her hair was _too _smooth and shiny, and it looked like Ino's after a trip to the beauty parlor. Her figure was too stereotypical, and her lips were _too _red. She was a bitch, too. She had put a nail through Sakura's thigh! She had put a _saw_ into her shoulder!

That bitch! What kind of person did that?

She looked up at Demetria's face. The woman was smiling happily, and looking quite pleased with herself. "Welcome! Are you better now?"

"Yes," Sakura wheezed.

"Excellent," she said. "But you're lying, aren't you?" Demetria's smile had changed.

"Yes," Sakura said again.

Demetria leaned forwards. "How did it not work? This is the first time. Did you do something?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"I realized your breasts were really fake," said Sakura. "And I wondered how I could admire somebody like that."

Demetria dislodged one of Sakura's teeth with a punch, and Sakura vomited once again, but this time took half a second to aim properly and did it all over Demetria. The woman stepped back, roaring in fury.

"YOU!" she roared. "You little bitch! I'll fucking kill you!"

Though feeling slightly better, Sakura didn't look up. She breathed heavily, and watching the ground as her blood dripped onto it. She had to prepare herself if Demetria tried to take her over again.

And she did, twice.

Both times, however, Sakura was ready, and stopped the pulses from doing anything. Her mind grew clearer and faster each time, but she knew that if Demetria kept it up, she wouldn't be able to do it any more. If she used it any more in this distressed state, she might risk a seizure. She used the time it took Demetria to realize that nothing was working to recover and prepare. Each time, she was punched or brutalized for it, but for some reason, the pain didn't bother her. It was actually kind of fun, to see Demetria get so riled up.

I should stop thinking like that, she thought. I knew this side would get me into trouble, which is why I never acted on it. No wonder Naruto was the class clown, though.

"Why isn't it working?" Demetria screamed, infuriated. "Why isn't she admiring me?"

Alcond quailed beneath Demetria's tyranny. "I do not know m-m-m-m-mistress! P-p-p-p-p-p-p-please forgive me!"

Demetria snarled at him again, and kicked him too. She then turned and snarled at Sakura.

"It doesn't matter, anyways. I have another way."

Sakura looked briefly into her eyes. The rage now existed in harmony with the earlier joy she had displayed. "You'll see. I'll make you mine yet."

She stomped away, into the gloom, ignoring Alcond, who still lay shivering on the ground. Sakura hung her head, exhausted. She couldn't sleep because of what Demetria had done to, but too tired to fix it, and in too much pain. She was glad that Alcond was attending to himself for a while.

Clear drops mixed in with the pool of blood on the floor.

She wanted someone to save her. She couldn't do it alone anymore. She needed someone to save her.

* * *

Yamato glanced up at the tall, stark white building before him. The windows, he saw, looked to be the only likely option of entering. He could see sentries in nearly all of them, but that didn't matter too much to him. Chances are there wouldn't be that many in any given room, and they'd be able to kill at least one or more of them before they were found out, and the alarm was raised. Hopefully by then, they'd be well within the confines of the bastion, and somewhere near the Grand Crusader's room. Lord Maxwell had provided them with a basic blueprint of the building; before the Scarlet Crusade had taken it over it had been a citadel of the Church of Holy Light. Maxwell had been within the confines of the Bastion before the Crusade had become corrupted, and so he had given Yamato an idea of where to go. The chamber would be the dead center of the building and be one of the biggest and probably the most heavily guarded. It would have no windows or entrances aside from the main one.

But he was thinking too far ahead. They had yet to even enter. He motioned to Myrdraxxis and Hisari, and they came closer.

"Myrdraxxis, I want you to kill the sentry in the window closest to us as quickly as you can. Hisari, do the next one down from him. I'll take the final one. It should lead into a single hall, where we'll meet back up. Any questions?"

Both just shook their heads.

They hopped to the building nearest them and dashed towards the bastion. They dipped into the alleyways between the houses, breaking up halfway through and taking slightly different routes to their goal. They wove in between houses and in alleyways, but kept their eyes trained on the building that rose above everything. But they kept their eyes sharp for Scourge too.

Yamato reached the bottom of the wall first, just below his window. He flattened himself against the wall, breathing slowly. After a few hand seals, he placed his hand against the wall, and closed both of his eyes. He breathed deeply, gathering the _chakra_ into his center, and then willed it into his fingertips.

'_Mokuton: Kankaku Tsuru no jutsu'_

They grew long and wooden, and crept like snakes up the wall, weaving in between the miniscule cracks in the seemingly perfect walls. He felt it all. He felt every vibration in the wall, no matter how miniscule. He felt Hisari and Myrdraxxis' rigid backs pressed against it, and the heavy but soft banners that hung midway between the ground and the windows, and the heavy footsteps of armored men walking in the hallways and rooms beside the wall. They crept closer and closer to his window, and soon he received more than just feelings, he heard sounds and smelt smells—the steady heartbeats of several Crusaders and also their loud breathing, and distantly some muffled speech, and the smell of the old stone and the unclean rooms beyond. Just below the window, vision blossomed behind his eyes, and he saw the stolid face of a burly Crusader who hadn't shaved in some time. He stared forwards, rarely blinked, and stunk of sweat and fire and blood.

Yamato made a seal with one hand. The vision became more intensely focused on the man's face, and everything else stretched out as his vine became spear-sharp. He sent a pulse of _chakra_, and made it move. The vision was suddenly red, and the smell of coppery blood became overwhelming, and then it all went dark. Yamato released the _jutsu_ and scaled the wall in quick strides at the same time the Crusader hit the ground, blood gushing from one ruined eye.

Hisari moved into position at about the same time. Right beneath her own window, she took a few breaths and looked up. She was not good at quiet. She was not some rogue. But she also knew that provoking a large-scale battle at this point would be foolish and likely get one of them killed. The faced the wall, glancing briefly to the side where Myrdraxxis was. The Forsaken was crawling up like a spider, pulling himself using only his _chakra _and arms, and was nearly halfway up already. To her left, Yamato was still on the ground, but even as she watched, quickly turned and mounted the wall, running upwards on two feet.

She gazed up at her own window.

Her climbing was not nearly as dexterous as Myrdraxxis', nor as quick as Yamato's, but she moved as quickly and silently as she could. The banner got in her way when she neared it, so she quickly circumvented it, and continued up alongside it, her eyes steadily fixed on her goal. Yamato had already entered his room, and Myrdraxxis was nearing his. She sped up, breathing heavily, feeling the weight of her armor and her sword, dragging her down and straining against her body painfully. But she didn't stop, and kept her frustration controlled. She kept everything that she would normally think tucked away behind her, like why wasn't this easy, or why had they chosen such a stupid way to go in? She kept it reigned in the back of her mind. Not now, she thought. Not now!

She reached her goal so suddenly it took her a moment to realize she had. She kept herself hidden just below the edge, until she regained control of her breathing, and had a firm grip on her sword.

The next seconds blurred together. She wrenched herself up and drew her monstrous sword as quickly as a hidden dagger, and swung it with one hand, removing the Crusader's head in a single blow before he could even open his mouth to scream. She stepped onto the drenched carpet, and took a moment to compose herself. Some of the fire returned to her eyes as she gazed over her victim in triumph, as her heart beat wildly from the adrenaline.

Perhaps the boy had been right.

* * *

"This is a city of the dead, isn't it?" Sai said, perched atop a roof, gazing over Stratholme's streets. "You an almost imagine them setting up shops, can you not?"

"Shut up," Naruto said. It was too hot. It was too loud. It was a city of the dead, to be sure, but the dead didn't want to shut up here. The sounds he had heard before were just louder now. He found himself glancing often at the streets, towards a shout he thought he had heard from somebody selling fresh vegetables and fruit, or small trinkets, only to see a ghoul shambling out from a building, sniffing and moaning. He could see movement in all directions, like a true city, but he saw only death when he looked.

The streets were covered in layers of gore, like the floors of a slaughterhouse. Bodies in every state of decay flooded the streets, some of them still moving. Each house looked like a skeletal face, moaning in despair, illuminated by a hidden flame that came from everywhere. But nothing was clear, either. The bodies would constantly warp and shift—at points becoming fresh, their blood standing out against the fresh white cobbles—before turning back to the rotten cadavers they had once been. The buildings would become whole at one point, and then return to their burnt appearance. He couldn't distinguish between the past and the present, for it seemed to be both at once. He saw the Scourge that walked it as living humans with a blink, and then back to being zombies in the next. It was as if the city didn't want to give up its past, and continued to drown in its despair.

Now, Naruto realized what Fen had been talking about. Stratholme's soul still burned. He stood now not in a city, but a gigantic corpse, among thousands of flies and maggots trying to pick it clean.

"Why do you always snap at me? Aren't we now friends?" Sai asked, smiling. "You saved my life, after all."

"I did?" Naruto asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Yes," said Sai. "Friends save each other's lives, do they not?"

"Do you even know what a friend is?" Naruto asked.

"Yes. It is a 'person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.'"

"So no," Naruto said, rolling his eyes. "We can't be friends until you know what one is, and I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon."

"Why not?"

"Quiet, kids," Fen said. "We don't want to draw their attention anymore than we have to." He walked along the roof, hopping to the next and constantly checking the streets. Naruto and Sai abandoned their argument and followed. "Though there isn't much a chance of that, now. Since Ramstein's dead, the one who runs this show isn't going to be happy."

"Who's that? The lich you keep mentioning?"

"By proxy," said Fen. "But he's probably not here, or we'd know. From what I've heard, it's a Death Knight."

"What's that?"

"A knight that's dead, and has a bunch of nasty powers that won't be fun to encounter. No, we should stick straight to heading towards the Bastion." He pointed, to where they could see the gigantic white stone building among the sea of skeleton houses, like a monolithic headstone. "That way." He glanced back at his two teammates. "Stick to the roofs, and make sure you aren't seen by any of the bigger ones, or the ones with armor. And keep your heads straight, as well." He looked particularly hard at Naruto. The boy nodded darkly.

Progress was immeasurably slow. There were crowds of Scourge in the streets, some of them as big as Ramstein, others smaller, though no less deformed. Fen told them to listen for the clopping of a horse, and twice Naruto thought he heard one; but it was simply the past interfering once more. The images of the past came and went at random—sometimes they occurred within seconds of each other, and other times they came in half an hour. The images grew ever more disturbing, and so did the contrast between the past and present. This place disgusted him.

The Scarlet Bastion loomed above them as they made their way towards it. The building fit perfectly among the city, for it seemed just as lively, for similarly wrong reasons. It was too perfectly white, too beautiful to exist in such a place as this. Inside, Naruto knew he'd find things that were as twisted as what lay in the streets. Just looking at it made him sick to his stomach, for the many banners and streamers that hung from the walls and spires of the bastion, ruffled by the wind, gave it the appearance of being wounded, of it gushing blood onto the already bloody streets. He must have commented on this aloud, because Fen snorted, and nodded. "Fits, doesn't it?" He rubbed his head, and scoffed. "These two are really peas in a pod, aren't they? They get along great, too, for mortal enemies."

Naruto couldn't agree more.

They had to change roofs frequently, even needing to leap across the wide streets—waiting for just the right chance when no abominations and the fewest Scourge possible were around. The jumps were simple—Naruto had done harder ones in training to become a shinobi as a child—but each one took more dedication and precision than Naruto had ever thought about. He recalled during his second jump a game he had played as a child (by himself) where he had to jump over certain areas as he had designated them lava. It had helped him improve his jumping skill, but he had never imagined it would come in useful in any other way, much less jumping over a street full of the living dead. Each jump brought them closer to the Bastion, but it also brought them deeper into the city.

Soon Naruto heard the telltale sounds of battle. It took him several minutes to realize that he wasn't simply hearing the past again, and realized that something was happening up ahead, near the entrance to the Scarlet Bastion. He strained his ears, filtering out the excess moans of the present and past, hearing the cling of swords and the shouts of real men as they struck out at the zombie Scourge. About that time, Naruto began to see that many of the Scourge were quickly moving in that direction. He looked at Fen.

"They're fighting, right? How are we going to get in now?"

"Wait a bit—we'll see what it's like. It won't be a big skirmish. It's probably one of their daily tussles. Let's get a bit closer," he added. "We'll have to be quick, but if they're busy enough, we could slip in unnoticed."

Naruto frowned. "You sure?"

"Not in the least. But it's better than nothing."

"No," said Sai, smiling. "It is not. Perhaps Naruto-kun could be of assistance here again."

Naruto looked at him, frowning. "How?"

"You can use _Kage Bunshin no jutsu_, can you not?" Sai asked. He smiled wider. "Then perhaps a simple clone could tell us if it is worth going or not. That is, after all, what the technique was made for—gathering information." There was something strange about Sai's smile (more than usual), but he couldn't deny that it was a good idea. He glanced at Fen.

"It's fine with me," said Fen. "Go ahead."

Naruto summoned the clone, which proceeded to leap across the street again, and follow the houses along the street, turning right at the next road, and then hoping across the street again, until it came to a large courtyard, which housed the entrance to the bastion. It was largely unimpressive—it was squashed between two rickety houses, nothing but a monstrous door made pincushion from all the spears, swords and gashes it bore. The rest of the building loomed over the courtyard, casting it in permanent shadow. But out of all of Stratholme so far, it bore the most evidence of decay and destruction.

If Naruto had thought the streets were a slaughterhouse, it was nothing compared to this. Bodies upon bodies were stacked up against the edges of the courtyard, overflowing the buildings surrounding it, and forming a barricade in the small street that led into it. The ground was so covered in black and green, from the blood of Scourge and Crusader, that it was almost a swamp. Fumes of decay were almost visible from the rotting graveyard of bodies, which were indistinguishable from each other. It was impossible to tell which was Crusader and which was Scourge. But of course, it was almost true of the living as well.

Around twenty Crusaders, men and women both, crowded before the entrance, bodies slick with ichor to the point where their armor was no longer red. Bodies lay at their feet; they stood in a lake of ichor, and like children playing at the beach, reveled in it. They laughed and whooped and screamed, moaning in ecstatic, almost orgiastic pleasure, as they ripped and killed and crushed. Some had abandoned weapons all together, and fought the Scourge with their bare, bloody hands, tearing at rotting flesh until their own began to strip away. They didn't even care for their fellow Crusaders, and like wild dogs scrounging for the last bit of meat on a carcass, beat each other away to get at new prey, to be the first to rip that one's head off, or to gut another, or to crush the skull of a fallen zombie. The ones that died did not care, either. They died with morbid smiles on their faces, as if dying from pleasure itself, and fought until their bodies were nothing but scraps of bone and meat and blood, and even then they continued twitching long after their eyes had glazed over and their hearts had stopped.

The fought, and fought, and laughed and laughed, and the longer the clone watched, the more its sight became distorted. When it was dispelled, and Naruto was filled with what it had seen, he could no longer decide if there had been any humans within the courtyard, as he struggled to report through his nausea and disgust.

Just monsters.

"Crap," said Fen. "Then we need to find another way in. Any suggestions?"

"Why not just use the front door?" Sai asked, smiling.

Naruto frowned at him. "What are you talking about? Didn't you just here what I said? And that doesn't sound like a plan to come from you!"

Sai tilted his head to the side, and looked with the same smile, though for some reason, Naruto thought it was more condescending than before. It was like he was smiling to a child who had just said something obviously wrong, and was about to correct him. "You didn't let me finish, Naruto-kun. Perhaps we should disguise ourselves. If they are as you say…it shall not be hard."

Naruto looked to Fen. "Can you do it?"

"Myrdraxxis had taught me a few things," said Fen. "But nothing like what you guys can do."

"It will not work," said Sai, "if it is not perfect." He motioned with his hands, and in a puff of smoke, he became an exact duplicate of Fen, right down to the pseudo-smile. Even Naruto, who had used the _jutsu_ all his life, couldn't tell the difference between the two. Sai returned a moment later. "You cannot perform something like that, can you?"

"Can't say I can," said Fen.

"Then you must stay behind, and cover us," said Sai. "As it is, you are already something that will draw attention. You will need to stay out here, and be our eyes."

"How do we—oh, with the earpiece things, right?" Fen looked troubled, and scratched his chin, making a few bits of skin flake off. He finally shrugged. "I can't think of anything better. How are you going to slip in?"

Sai smiled. "You are familiar with the behavior of predators, are you not? They would not have fought and remained unharmed. We take the weakest, and replace them."

"Won't that cause problems?"

"Only if they notice. But they do not seem to me to be so…observant."

Fen looked at Naruto, who was still trying to recover from the earlier shock. The boy wiped sweat from his forehead, and kept his eyes trained on the floor. He didn't like the idea, but it was the best they had, and they needed to get through and into the bastion somehow. It would take some time before they were discovered, if they were careful. But he couldn't help but feel needles of worry in his stomach. It wasn't like him.

Finally, he looked up and nodded once, before digging around in his pouch and handing Fen the earpiece.

"That's all said and done, I suppose. I'll stay here. Contact me when you're inside, and out of earshot of anybody else."

"Good luck, Mr. Rotten," said Sai, before leaping across the street.

Fen's brows knitted vaguely together. "Mr. Rotten? What is that? A nickname?"

Naruto shrugged. "Don't ask me."

"He's a strange one. Are you going to be okay?"

"I don't know," said Naruto. "That guy…I don't know what he's thinking half the time. I don't know anything about him, other than that he openly admits he's a spy for somebody who could be an enemy to our village."

"I see," said Fen. "Bit odder than I had previously thought, then. Keep your eye on him. I don't know if I can trust him that much. It's that smile, I suppose."

"Yeah." Naruto's brow knitted. "It isn't it?" He sighed. "Good luck."

"You'll need it more than me," said Fen. "Go on. Be quick about it, too. Saying that I don't like this place is a vast understatement, but it's all that time will allow me. And don't forget what Lady Sylvanas told you, eh?"

Naruto flashed him a smile, and then took off after Sai. Upon rejoining the boy, they quickly hurried across the roofs and streets to get to the courtyard, Naruto keeping a wary eye on the streets as he did. The fighting had not yet ceased when they arrived, and indeed, had just entered a new stage. Two abominations had entered the courtyard, and smashed their way through the smaller Scourge to get to the group of Crusaders, which had dwindled to less than ten by this time, so all that remained were the maddened dregs of once amazing warriors, now just monstrous dogs.

"We must get nearer to them," said Sai, almost pleasantly, as if he were enjoying it. Naruto nodded despite his disgust, and they went along the roofs towards the bastion, keeping their eyes trained on the ground below. The abominations were nowhere near the quality of Ramstein, it appeared, as they saw one of them go down, mobbed by the group of Crusaders.

By this time, they had reached the very side of the bastion, and kept themselves hidden against the railing of the building. Just below them the Crusaders fought, their wild howls echoing.

"Are you ready, Naruto-kun?" Sai slowly raised himself into a standing position, so he smiled down at Naruto.

"Yeah." He tried to force out the sounds behind him and concentrate on his goal. He stood up, and took a deep breath.

"Do you have the one you wish to duplicate?"

"Yeah."

"Then shall we go?"

Naruto made a seal.

"Yeah."

They plunged downwards, into the bloody, maddening abyss.

* * *

The hall was silent, almost terribly so. Hisari soon became conscious of the fact that she among her companions was the only one making any noise with her steps, and slowed down a bit. She tried to ignore this as long as she could, as they left the corridor, and descended a cramped spiral staircase into another corridor that had several branches. Yamato quickly glanced in each direction, and then motioned to the right. They needed to get down. The Grand Crusader's chamber was on the first floor, and they were nowhere near that.

Yamato jumped at every noise made, every distant footstep, every clatter or clink the bastion made on its own. Hisari's earlier resolve slowly faded, and she became as demure as before. The air was oppressive and hot, and it smelt no cleaner inside than it did out, despite its impeccable appearance. It did not help that every moment they imagined being discovered by the Crusade, which added to the stifling air, and urged her to go faster with each step, even when Yamato kept the same, slow, methodical pace.

Yamato stopped her once from going on, and froze his body completely. A second later, a pair of Crusaders emerged from a door just beyond the corner, where Hisari could see, and walked in the direction opposite of them. They were rigid and silent and walked like the automatons that guarded her city. Yamato waited until they were completely out of sight before moving, this time with uncharacteristic swiftness, down the hall and through another door, into a wide staircase different from the rest. It did not spiral, and was far more exposed than the previous ones had been, which Yamato seemed put off by.

Hisari's heart beat wildly. It was something she had never felt before. It was tremendously agonizing. She felt anxious with all this sneaking around. She had always confronted her enemy head on, previously. That allowed her to fight more. But she couldn't fight here. Not with this human— this man—in charge, with the deadly seed he had implanted in her body and his sharp and cold demeanor; or that boy with his stupid, empty words and his off-balancing personality.

But each step brought them closer to their goal. Hisari found herself even more anxious with each step. She should feel thrilled, but she did not and that was disturbing. What was wrong with her? Had the boy's words affected her that much?

Yamato led them down the staircase but not through the door at the bottom. Footsteps and other sounds of mobile life could be heard behind it, though it was the only door in the area. Yamato swore to himself silently.

"We're only on the fourth floor," he whispered. "I don't remember there being many large rooms in between the windows and the chamber."

"There is no other way?" Myrdraxxis whispered.

"There might. But we don't have the time to check."

"Then it is obvious what we should do."

"Which is why I don't like this. We'll be discovered too soon."

"There are plenty of places to hide." Myrdraxxis unsheathed one dagger, the obsidian black one on his left side, _Tuska_.

Yamato nodded. That there were. He looked at Hisari. "Can you control yourself?"

Hisari did not ask how he knew. He was too smart, she decided, for his own good. "_Yes."_

"Good. Stay close and don't go out of your way to fight. We'll cut a path through, and cause as much confusion as possible. Follow me, and keep vigilant. This is only the first of many, and not even the most important fight we'll have here." He looked at them both, received their nods, and then turned back to the door.

He took a breath, and kicked it open, leaping into the room.

What he found, he did not expect.

It was empty.

Save, of course, for the Scarlet Ghost, and twenty of his Crusader brethren, all facing Yamato, Hisari and Myrdraxxis, and all dressed for battle. The Ghost stepped forwards in the dim light, and beckoned Yamato into the room.

"_Well, walker-in-the-night, have I surprised thee?"_

* * *

"Your Holiness," Lady Demetria said in a delicate purr, leaning forwards to fully expose her body's most compelling assets. "May I have but a moment of your most glorious time?"

"What is it, Demetria?" He was brooding, as he often did. His warriors had stopped their battle for the day, and had returned, and he was not happy because of it. The Baron hadn't even shown himself today. "I am not in the mood."

She snaked across the room, and laid her head against his thigh, and began to stroke it, purring every so sweetly, with a smile affixed that most men could only dream of seeing on a woman's face. Her eyes never left his, and he was rigid as rock.

"I need you to give one of those nasty pets the initiation."

Dathrohan raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because," she said, pouting. "She won't fall under my ability. It is most odd."

"That is impossible."

"But it isn't," she insisted, her eyes aglow with both anger and wonder. "She has some ability that prevents her; I have never seen anything like it. But with your initiation, she would be ours within seconds."

"But it would be far too obvious."

"It only need be a little." She ran her fingers along the inside of his thigh, making a coy face and filling her words with poisoned honey. "Only a drop, perhaps. Enough to make her ours. I could reduce the amount of rage she feels with my ability. Would that not be proper? And then, in time, she would be able to spread your influence far faster, wouldn't you say?" She licked her lips and grinned. "Wouldn't you, Holiest of Holies?"

Dathrohan made no response. He drummed his fingers along the arm of his throne, creating a deep, reverberating thrum throughout the chamber. He was not looking at her.

She smiled.

"Fine," he finally said. "Bring her to me. She will be baptized into the fold, properly. She shall become one of the Crimson Legion."

Demetria stepped away almost immediately, and turned on her heel. She glided back towards the door, only turning briefly to blow him a small kiss, her eyes and demeanor completely changing as she turned. Her smile became wolfish, and her eyes stopped on cruel in their slot-reel emotions. She would be hers soon enough. Everything always, sooner or later, was.

* * *

I'm sorry for that. I don't think that was a super-terrific chapter. I had hoped for a little bit more action, but I realized that I'd just be cramming in unnecessary battles, and that wouldn't be fun for you guys, either—just tedious. Next one will have more, I know.

This is the last chapter before I go on vacation. I'll be back in a month, and expect a new chapter in mid-July.

Please review this one, as well. I want to make it better, and your input would help immensely.

Now, in any case, here are (for those not well-versed in German) the translations Ramstein's lines.

"ZERSTOREN" means "DESTROY"

"MEIN HERZ BRENNT" means "MY HEART BURNS."

"SPIEL MIT MIR" means "PLAY WITH ME"

"FEUER FREI" means "FIRE AT WILL" or literally "FIRE FREE"

"MANN GEGEN MANN" is a rather stupid joke, which is remarkably clever for Ramstein. It means "MAN AGAINST MAN".

"MUTTER" means "MOTHER"

and finally "IST DOCH DIE SCHONST STADT DER WELT" means "IT'S STILL THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY IN THE WORLD"

Hope that all helps. Again, please review, particularly on this chapter, as I am not happy with it.

Thanks, and see you guys in a month! I'll be back, fresh and ready to write! Don't worry about that! The next few chapters I have planned are going to be lots of fun, I hope.

Have a good June! See you in July!

General Grievous

**_Scroll of Seals:_**

_**Mokuton: Kankaku Tsuru no jutsu (**__**Sense Vine technique)**_: Releases a vine which can effectively extend the senses of a human for a considerable distance. The person cannot perceive anything in his immediate surroundings, however, as long as the _jutsu_ is activated.

_**Hien (Flying Swallow) Kodachi: **_Surrounds a kodachi in cutting _wind _elemental _chakra_ which vastly enhances its ability to pierce and slash, and thus making it an extremely deadly weapon, that could even cut steel with ease. It also extends the range of the weapon.

_**Feuer Frei (Fire Free or Fire at Will): **_Generates and intensely powerful lightning storm above the user, who constantly supplies it with energy, and then releases it in an extra-powerful attack alongside a weapon. Can be vastly damaging, but can be blocked easily by earth techniques, and dispelled by wind techniques.


	18. Abandon Hope, Ye who enter here

_Disclaimer: Hot stuff! I'm back from Egypt, and I still don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft!_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto_!

* * *

"_I despise this place, Lady Demi. I would like to reach the chapel as soon as we can."_

"_There are not many who do like this place, Highlord Fordragon. But it is the only way we can do what we must."_

"_And so close to those madmen, as well," he said, shaking his head. "I do not like this. We have already made an enemy of them, when we exposed their slave trade of the orcs—which I still cannot believe we did. What are those creatures to us?"_

_She smiled at him, and shook her head lightly. "Life, whoever it may belong to, is precious, Highlord. I could not let it go like that. But there are rumors of even worse acts committed by the Scarlet Crusade."_

"_Do you believe them?"_

"_I cannot say," she said. "The Scarlet Crusade is not an evil organization—they have only the best intentions. They may be misguided, but they wish to make this land safe for us."_

"_And they never will," Fordragon said. "They are monsters."_

"_What proof do you have?"_

"_Only my instincts," he said. "And the knowledge that blind faith will never solve anything, which they have in spades, milady. I wish you would sometimes take a definite stance."_

"_I do," she said, lightly. "But they are not lost forever. They can be convinced."_

"_You cannot convince those who will not listen. The faithful are experts at that, milady."_

"_Then perhaps you should stop as well," she said, smiling back at him._

_He said nothing, for a while._

"_I have no plan to do anything other than reach the chapel in this trip," he finally said. "And then return the same way. Heal your sick and wounded, and then let us be gone. It has already taken us weeks to reach this place. The Argent Dawn better be grateful."_

"_I have no doubt they shall be," she said lightly. "Now come—we'd best be there by nightfall."_

"_It is difficult to tell in this place—perhaps it already is." But they moved swiftly on, nonetheless. They stopped once to destroy a pack of ghouls that had gathered around a mutilated body, stripped of clothing and by the time they arrived, nearly of skin. It had been dead for several days before the ghouls had arrived, which puzzled Demi as she gazed down at it. It had been a young girl, perhaps fifteen, from what she could gather. _

"_What would a fifteen year old girl be doing this far from civilization?" she asked herself aloud. Fordragon, who had finished piling the dead Scourge into a heap and had set them aflame, turned to her. _

"_Human?"_

"_Yes," said Demi, frowning. She checked again. It was human—almost certainly not blood elf, which frequented these parts, and would have made for a much better explanation. There had long since been no towns left alive in these places, and even in the mountains they had probably all left, fleeing south away from Sylvanas and her Undercity as well as the Scourge. Demi stood, and closed her eyes, whispering a soft prayer that her master had taught her to speak over the dead. Fordragon watched her, silently. She then opened them, and smiled a little, before turning back to him. _

"_Let us bury her. Then we will move on."_

_Fordragon nodded. "It would be wrong to ask—but something is troubling you, is it not?"_

"_There is hardly something that is not," she said, softly. "And I assume you don't mean this child."_

"_Of course not. You have seen many dead children in your life."_

"_That does not make it easier each time, Highlord," she said._

"_Then why do you smile?"_

_She blinked at him, perplexed. "I was not…"She paused, and then shook her head, and said. "Sometimes it is easier to smile and bear it, and now is not the time for tears. I will save the for when this is over, and I cannot do anything to help any longer." She smiled softly, and a little sadly at him. "You understand, do you not?"_

_He nodded, and went along digging a large hole near the edge of the forest, by a tree that looked less deformed than the others. They laid the child to rest there, and then, with Demi saying another final prayer over her, returned to walking, now faster than before. _

"It never gets any easier? Of course it does."

"_Do you hear something?" Demi asked, looking around, frowning._

"_No," Fordragon said. "Nothing that is not typical for this place."_

"It gets easier to push it all away."

"_In the trees," Demi said, breathing faster. "I hear something, are you sure you do not?"_

_Fordragon listened, slowly, and then said. "Yes. I hear it."_

"But don't worry, you won't need do to it much longer."

"_Let's go."_

_Fordragon nodded. "Fine. But I do not like this."_

"You won't need to do much of anything any longer."

_The smell reached them long before they saw it._

* * *

Astride his steed, he rode the streets of the dead city, and listened to both the past and the present. The sweet sounds of the past—light and airy and distant, like a soft scent barely touching one's nose, leading one to pursue it further and become deeper entrenched in the slaughter that had scarred the city—forever mixed with the vibrant, earthy and voluminous sounds of the present: heavy, solid and recent, drenching one in the horror of what was around them, sucking them in until they could not escape, nor want to. The air was filled with a sweet and succulent taste that fed everything within with endless despair and rapture. The past and present blended in a symphony that only those who had lived both could appreciate its delicacy and beauty. Where else in the world could it be both night and day at once? Could chaos and order blend? Hatred and love become one? Where else could the dead and the living live in perpetual harmony? Where good and evil could coexist so perfectly that they became indistinguishable?

This city was one of a kind. A work of genius that could never be duplicated, and to try would surely be a crime against nature itself. Not even the Lords of Time, the Bronze Dragons, nor the Titans or the demons of the Twisting Nether, could create such a beautiful work of art; every piece of which was so beautiful that to look upon the whole thing at once would surely be impossible, for the mind of any creature would be overwhelmed by its awesome grandeur.

It was beauty incarnate; it was perfection.

The rider rode the streets every day, and reveled in this. He reveled in its beauty. He didn't want it ever to end. The fighting would never stop. Nobody could stop it, because it was past and present and future. It was a continuous cycle, like the sun's pursuit of the moon; death would beget death, hate beget hate, and it would continue in a glorious, unending cycle, like a mill wheel fed with a constant supply of water

It truly was a city more beautiful than any other, in his eyes.

But something was eternally wrong with the city. He wanted it to fight constantly, to rage like a hell on earth for eternity, and one thing prevented that. It was like a perfect arm on an otherwise withered body. It continued to live and fight, even though it should have long since rotted away. Against all odds it survived and nourished itself with whatever it could find and continued to fight, even though it would be so much more perfect if it died and withered and joined the rest of the body in its eternal torture.

That was what he wanted.

He wanted its corpse to join the others, and its memory to continue to fight.

And now, he might get a chance. The side that had always shouted in anger and roared like an animal now screamed at him to move faster, to go to a place that he had never set foot in within this beautiful city. A place that hadn't been open to him, but now would be, and allow him to stand upon the rotting corpses of ten thousand men and look upon the face of his greatest enemy. The one cloaked in crimson and black, with eyes like the twilight and a heart snatched from death. The one who laughed victoriously with each Scourge killed, so foolishly. The one that would he would soon meet for the first time, who called to him whenever the sides clashed, who shouted at him insults accusing cowardice and weakness, but who was still afraid of their meeting.

So he rode on, in his left ear a voice whispering softly and soothingly for him to destroy that enemy utterly. He obeyed without question, and called out for the city to aid him, to act as his ally in the forthcoming battle. After all, no matter how much he loved this city, it was not his.

It was _His_.

* * *

Yamato's eyes snapped to the doors on either side of the room, and the one behind where the Scarlet Ghost stood. He doubted any of them could make it in time, especially when he recalled how fast the Ghost moved. That left them with the suicidal and near impossible option of sending one to distract the entire group while the other two escaped and located the Grand Crusader's chamber. That came, of course, with the problems of finding the most heavily guarded room in the bastion, getting in without dying, and then defeating the most important and probably powerful Crusader of them all.

The chances, therefore, were slim enough for him to consider simply abandoning the entire mission. It would be mindless to continue with such odds.

Of course, that probably wasn't going to stop him. The first thing you were taught at the Academy was that the mission was more important than your life. You should always consider the consequences of failing the mission before you consider the equation of your own life. And for the entirety of his career, Yamato had followed that. ANBU were supposed to. You could not afford to screw up a mission that could, and probably would, have dire consequences for one's village. Shinobi were supposed to die for their village. That was the rule; that was what everyone expected. Yamato was no different.

No matter how slim the chance was he knew he had to take it.

He let out a breath silently, and took a step towards the Scarlet Ghost, who remained unmoving and corporeal, unlike his name suggested. His weapons were not drawn, or even visible, but Yamato knew how fast he could draw them so he kept his body tense.

"You noticed us," Yamato said, "pretty quickly."

"_I thank thee," _said the Ghost, with a short bow that bore no hint of mockery. "_But as I told thee before thou even arrived at this place—I knew that thou wouldst come. It was perfect."_

"Truly," said Yamato, moving slowly backwards and to the side, his eyes never leaving the crystal blue of the Ghost's. "Your trap was clever, but you did nothing to hide it. I was just amazed at how you were able to tell when we came, and where to head us off."

"_We have been in this city for longer than thou canst imagine. It is only proper that we know it far better than our enemies."_ He too began to move, with slow, fluid and deliberate steps that mirrored Yamato's perfectly. Yamato shot a look briefly to the side, where Hisari and Myrdraxxis stood. Neither had moved, and both were glancing at him and the group of Crusaders.

"_But surely,"_ said the Ghost, "_this is not all of thee? I hazard a guess that the other members of thine team have infiltrated in a different way?"_

"Perhaps," said Yamato.

"_It matters not. They will meet with an unfortunate surprise, if they are intent on finding that which does not exist."_

"Doesn't exist?" Yamato narrowed his eyes, for effect, while keeping them trained slightly past the Ghost on the door. That was where they had to go, if he recalled. "So you bluffed us, then."

"_Yes."_ The Ghost moved in way of the door, showing that knew exactly where Yamato was looking.

"So you've set a trap for them as well?"

"_There was no need. They will soon be discovered by the one that they will not be able to defeat." _

"Oh?" Yamato's fingers twitched a little. He was sweating. He didn't know whether to stall longer or attack. "I have an inkling of whom you mean. But I'm still slightly confused—why did you need us here at all?"

"_Surely," _said the Ghost, "_thou hast figured it out? It is not so hard at this point. Surely there are some observations thou canst make to stall this battle just a moment longer, as thou hast intended?"_

"Of course," said Yamato slowly. Then, he reacted.

"But, then again, I have no need to anymore."

He exploded into action, and so did the Ghost. He drew a _kunai_ and threw it directly at the charging Crusader, who avoided it, seeming to become ethereal in doing so, and appearing before Yamato before the man could draw another weapon. In a silver flash the Ghost clipped off a part of Yamato's vest with one of his blades, while bringing the other down low, slicing at his gut. Yamato hurtled himself backwards to avoid the cut, flying back towards the door he had arrived from. He landed, and then shouted, "Hisari, Mydraxxis! Complete the mission! I'll hold them off here!"

Myrdraxxis reacted without a thought. He shot towards the line of Crusaders, who converged on him, howling like wolves. Hisari stayed a second longer, glancing back at Yamato, who had already begun making hand seals, his eyes once again resting on the Ghost, who stood unmoving from where he had last attacked the shinobi. Then, the Blood Knight followed Myrdraxxis.

The Ghost watched Yamato finish his seals, and then thrust his hands forwards. The floor shook, and right in the middle of the mass of Crusaders a sinuous vine exploded from the floor, flinging men in every direction. More vines blossomed from it, wrenching the Crusaders closest to the door away from it and ruthlessly impaling or crushing them while Myrdraxxis and Hisari sped through the chaos, and disappeared through the door.

The Ghost didn't even bother watching this. He kept his eyes solely on Yamato.

Yamato stared at him. "You didn't try to stop them."

"_There was no need. I know now what thine purpose here was. Something else compelled thee to come, am I correct?"_

"You are," said Yamato, lowering himself into an attacking stance and drawing another _kunai_.

"_He cannot be defeated. Especially with the advantage we possess against you already." _The Ghost said.

Yamato knitted his brows together, and delayed his attack a moment longer. What was he talking about? The way the man said "advantage"—as a singular—made it immediately clear that he was not talking about the numerous ones he already possessed over Yamato—location, number, probably even skill. "What are you talking about?" he asked, softly.

"_The children of course,"_ the Ghost said. "_The Princess Kira and the young shinobi that thou left behind."_

* * *

"Clean up," ordered a tall Crusader, his neck thick with muscle and his eyes madness. "Thou art covered in that filth. I don't want to see thee again until thou hast purified thineselves of that disgusting refuse."

One of the men, dressed in tatters and covered from head to foot in green ichor and blood, and still holding his sword—which was similarly attired—stepped forwards.

"Of course, sir," he said. The man next to him stayed completely silent, and just stared forwards at nothing. The superior Crusader glared at him for a moment, but when he received no response, he nodded and walked off, striding with mindless purpose from the room.

The Crusader who had spoken then turned and smiled at the other, and said, "Shall we clean up?"

"No," the other muttered, looking annoyed. "I'm not getting in a bath with you again."

"I didn't mean it like that. I meant that we should change our form," the first said, laughing. A moment later, in a puff of smoke, he became a far shorter boy with short black hair and a vacant smile, and in another moment, he became the same Crusader, now dressed in perfect attire. The other busied himself with the same, changing into a blonde-haired boy and then back into his first form, still looking annoyed. Had any Crusader walked in, it would have been easy to tell that they were fakes. The emotions they expressed were completely foreign in the Bastion, and probably hadn't been seen for half a century, when the city had been whole. But thankfully they were alone, as all of the other Crusaders had been either killed or dragged off somewhere, foaming at the mouth and still screaming and trying to fight. Naruto had watched one of them in this state, thrashing like a wild animal trying to free itself from a trap, shouting nonsense phrases and laughing too. He hadn't thought it possible for a human to look like that.

He was suddenly glad that he had never seen himself in a mirror, when he had used the Kyuubi's _chakra_. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to see yourself like that.

Being the only two even slightly sane and still alive, the captain had seemed surprised by their presence, but thankfully hadn't apparently thought about it much. It must not have been so uncommon for those to survive battle with the Scourge. But both Sai and Naruto knew that they couldn't keep up their ruse for long. The _jutsu_ ate _chakra_ like a starving man, so they would have to act quickly.

The hallways were wide and empty, and stretched on forever. Some were lined with doors, some of which they checked and discovered to be small storage rooms or bedrooms, so simply clad that they looked little different from cells—in stark contrast to the rest of the palace.

The air was sweet smelling, like flowers and various spices, but underneath that was something else—coppery and salty, the smell of blood and steel. Even though it was a bastion, it could not completely isolate itself from the death that surrounded it. Naruto could smell the distant burning of the ghostly city, wafting from the windows. It was very warm; even the thick walls did nothing to protect the bastion from the infernal heat.

Neither of them knew where they were going. The portal could be anywhere—if it indeed existed—and no matter where they tried, it led to the same places—closets, rooms or another hallway. More than once they met other Crusaders on the way, who gave them no more than salutes before moving on. But having no idea where they were going, and each time they opened a door they became that much closer to being discovered or doing something out of place, Naruto began to worry. What was worse was that Sai didn't seem to be. The boy continued to walk, and kept his expression completely controlled. It didn't look out of place on the Crusader, but Naruto could almost see Sai's face beneath it. The boy's expression—whether it was one of his smiles or even nothing at all—never looked natural. Naruto disliked him for exactly that—because he didn't take emotion seriously. He kept his buried deep down; it wasn't that he didn't have them, because Naruto didn't believe at all that the boy was somehow missing them. He kept them hidden like everything else about him.

But he had to admit that he was a good shinobi.

No matter how loathe he was to admit it.

They entered soon a larger room with many doors, furnished the same as all the rest. Sai stopped and looked around, observing each door intently for only a second. He cast a look at Naruto.

"We should split up."

Naruto wrinkled his nose. Truthfully, he liked the idea but that also posed some problems. "Why?"

"We won't find what it is we are looking for if we just search around like this. It is rather pointless, wouldn't you say?" He smiled like Sai, but it looked completely out of place on the Crusader's face.

"It's too dangerous," Naruto said.

"But surely you would be happy to get rid of me?" The Crusader tilted his head to the side, like Sai.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"You don't like me, that's obvious. So this would be the best chance for you to get away from me, and it would double as being beneficial to the mission. Why not take it?" His smile slowly faded into nothingness again, and he just stared at Naruto.

"Because..." But he trailed off. Sai stared at him, smiling.

"Because…"

He didn't get a chance to finish.

A door to their right opened, the twisting of the bolts particularly loud in their ears. Accompanying it was the muttering of somebody—a man—who appeared a moment later, gaunt and thin with wild eyes. He dragged behind him a leather sack from which a pair of legs only just emerged from the bottom. The sack was chained up near the top, but whoever was inside did not struggle, nor did they even move. Naruto could see blood caked at the person's feet, which were smooth and delicate looking—probably a woman's. He briefly shut his eyes as the man crossed the room hardly looking at them, to a door just across from him. Before the man left, however, he turned and grinned at the two of them, as if they had shared some inside joke.

"Just bringing the bitch angel to the master. No worries." He gave them a little wave, and then went through the door, slamming it shut. His mutterings continued for a few seconds after he was gone.

"What was that?" Naruto whispered, frowning.

"It was a girl," said Sai. "One that we'll probably never know." He turned and glanced around the room again. "Which door?"

"That one," Naruto said, pointing to where the man had just exited. "He's going somewhere, and that's the best lead we have."

"Very well." Sai opened the door and moved past it, followed quickly by Naruto. They entered a much larger hallway, lined with statues, and only one door at the very end. There was no sign of the man or his grisly cargo, save for a smell of lingering blood. As they grew closer to the other door, voices reached their ears, indistinct and muffled by the door. Sai strode purposefully in front, opening the door and entering a massive room made of pure white marble, heavily decorated in crimson banners and golden statues. To their immediate right, raised above the rest of the floor with steps leading up were a pair of massive golden doors, and to their left were more doors, large and inlaid with carvings of severe looking men clutching swords and shields. The room was flooded with Scarlet Crusaders, dressed in soldier's garb, standing in a long line that led from one set of doors to the other. The muttering man from earlier was walking along it, still dragging the bag, and soon entered the golden doors alongside a woman with long, golden hair, and somebody else that Naruto couldn't see over the tops of the Crusader's heads. Whoever it was disappeared into the next chamber, and the doors soon closed.

The Crusaders did not move at first. They stood ramrod straight until near the doors to the left, Naruto heard a very familiar voice.

"Dismissed. Return to your posts. She will soon be ours."

The Crusaders broke rank and began to leave. Both Sai and Naruto stood respectfully to one side of the door, letting the Crusaders pass through it, giving nods to a few but keeping their faces completely emotionless. When the room was empty they crossed it, heading for the door directly across from them; it was small like the previous one. They would not dare to enter the golden doors, because both of them realized that it wasn't their target. Naruto hoped Yamato would get there soon.

Naruto then made the mistake of glancing to one side, where they had heard the voice of the giant "milord" from Tyr's Hand. He was standing there, perfectly still, blocking the carved marble doors. Even though his helmet remained on, Naruto knew that he was staring straight at him.

He stopped.

Sai did too, glancing only just briefly at Naruto and "milord", before spinning and launching a _kunai _straight at him.

The giant slapped the weapon from the air with his gauntleted hand, and uttered a low chuckle. The giant had recognized Naruto long before Sai's attack.

"I've found you."

* * *

"Come with me."

Lady Demetria's tone was somewhere between joyful and furious when she strode into the room and set her chameleon gaze on its three occupants. Kira jerked back slightly from the power evident in Demetria's voice, but did not look away from her eyes, which were fixed solely on Kira.

"You were concerned about your other friend, weren't you?" she asked, and smiled at Kira, her personality once again changing to suit the situation. "I'm going to bring you to her."

Kira felt a tremor of fear. "Why?"

"Must you ask that? You should know by now that you won't get a straight answer." The woman's eyes passed to the fox and Kira's best friend. Tsuwabuki growled and Kylia shrank back. "They can stay here. I don't particularly like dogs." She grinned nastily at the two of them, making Tsuwabuki growl more and Kylia shrink even further. Demetria spun on her heel and made to leave. Kira didn't move.

"What's going on?"

"Many things," said Demetria, "even as we speak. If you don't hurry, you may miss it all. They don't need to see it," she added, gesturing to Kylia and Tsuwabuki. "They're not important parts to this. Now come, princess, or you'll miss seeing your friend become something very beautiful."

"Beautiful?" Kira muttered.

"Gorgeous, even," the Scarlet Oracle said.

Kira got up and made to follow, mouthing a silent "I'll come back" to Kylia, who registered it with a slight nod, but kept her eyes trained on Demetria. Demetria didn't acknowledge this, until after they had left the room and were walking down the hallway, Demetria slightly in front now with a ghastly spring in her step.

"Your little pet—the black-haired one—seems afraid of me."

"You look a lot like someone she loved very much," Kira said, softly.

"Your mother? Demi Wrynn?" said the woman, grinning.

"Yes," said Kira.

"It is an interesting resemblance, is it not? Even the old man made the mistake. I wonder why I look so much like her? Perhaps I am she?"

"You're not," said Kira, although she still did not entirely believe it. Kylia had told her that she had thought that the giant man wearing the red horned helmet had been her mother's guardian, former High Lord Bolvar Fordragon, but neither of them could be sure of that, either. She hadn't seen his face, only recognized his monstrous presence and his mannerism of standing straight up, and his smell of hot steel. But that didn't mean it was he. Kira clung to that hope.

"Why not?" Demetria said. "Was she not as pretty as me? Or as powerful?"

"She wasn't like you at all," Kira said. "She was kind, generous, smart and amazingly beautiful, and she would never have joined a cause like this. She would have never let herself become what you are."

Demetria looked down at her, with eyes that revealed surprisingly nothing. Then she smiled again.

"Do you even remember her all that well? How old were you when she died? From what I've heard, Anduin has been alone for almost ten years. You couldn't remember that much about her, could you?" She bent down and whispered into Kira's ear.

"How well did you know your mother, little princess?"

Kira grit her teeth, but didn't answer. She didn't want to. All she remembered of her mother was a smile, a beautiful, loving smile that no matter how hard she tried Demetria would never be able to reproduce. She remembered everything else from talks with Benedictus, who had loved her mother like a daughter, and her father, on rare occasions. She had memorized every little thing about her mother from photos and paintings and stories, and had dreamed about her voice and her smile.

But that did not mean she had known her mother.

So she remained silent.

* * *

Yamato and the Ghost clashed again.

Whatever the Ghost's blades were made from, it was far stronger and sharper than the iron that Yamato's _kunai _were made from—they tore them apart like butter, quickly showing Yamato that it wasn't worth fighting the man hand to hand. The Ghost was amazingly swift and dexterous, far more so than he, so each time they did he came off the worse of the two. But he had learned that long-range fighting was just as difficult.

The Ghost had a _jutsu_ which allowed him to summon blades of pure light, which had enough power to pierce his wooden shields—which were so saturated with his own _chakra_ that it usually took a lot more to break through them. And coupled with the Ghost's speed, it was more than enough to show Yamato that he might lose this battle.

He dodged a strike aimed at his stomach, and kicked at the Ghost's legs. The man lifted his own and kicked back, so that Yamato only struck the bottom of his foot, and he was unprepared for the extra force, so he was thrust off-balance, allowing the Ghost to move in and slice a shallow wound across his arm and shoulder, just as he twisted out of range and jumped back. He thrust a palm up at the Ghost's face, but the other man leaned away, avoiding the wooden spike that had emerged from it. The Ghost lunged forwards then and slammed his head into Yamato's nose, and then slashed at the man's sides with both weapons. Wood extended from Yamato's flesh and deflected the blades, and he then swept the Ghost's feet out from under him and hammered him into the ground with a punch, and began to viciously kick his side, hardening his foot with wood and making spikes blossom from it for extra damage. But true to his name, the Ghost seemed to evaporate, speedily rolling away, leaping up, and then disappearing again.

The room was not empty, but they were the only two left alive. Yamato had decimated the other Crusader's using his _Mokuton_ _jutsu_.

The Ghost reappeared at the other end of the room, making a seal. As if summoned by God himself, orbs of light began to erupt around him, sharpening themselves into glowing swords soon after. Yamato wiped his bleeding, probably broken, nose with his uninjured arm and shook himself. His body was already exhausted and the Ghost didn't even seem to be panting.

"_Blades of God."_

The Ghost thrust his hands forwards, and they shot like lightning bolts across the room. Yamato clapped his hands together, which caused branches to erupt from his own body, twisting together to form a tight knot in front of him. The several of the blades slammed into it, and sunk in almost half way before stopping. The others flew past, harmlessly.

Yamato unwound the knot and hissing, formed the branches into sharp spears. He stretched them out, like makeshift arms, and sent them straight at the Ghost. They went at all sides, ensuring that the Ghost had no direct route of escape, and fell upon him from both above and below. But he hopped up and kicked off one branch, flipping through the air and landing lightly on top of another. He then brought his hands together and pulled them towards his chest. The action was far too purposeful, so Yamato glanced back to see the blades that had passed him before returning to him. They came all in a line, aiming for the exact same place. Yamato began to turn, but realized a shield would be pointless. He waited.

But he waited too long. As the blades neared him, he felt the tendril the Ghost was standing on quiver. He had no time to look up and back before the blades struck, and he had conjured no shield to protect himself from either attack. He made a seal right before a blade slammed into his stomach, and the Ghost fell upon him, slicing in an "x" shape across his back, cutting clean through him. The rest of the light blades impaled him in a line across his chest and stomach, and stopped before they went all the way through and killed their creator.

There was a lot of blood.

The Ghost pulled back, ripping his drenched blades from the body of one of his Crusader brethren. "_An interesting art, that is. Thou art a master of battle, walker-in-the-night."_

"I have a question," Yamato asked, from somewhere behind him. "You're the only Crusader I have known who has spoken of 'God'. They all talk of the 'Light', but it seems to me that it is a fairly big leap from 'light' to 'God'."

The Ghost turned, and stared into Yamato's large brown eyes. "_Thou art correct. My concept of the Holy Light—for that it was we all worship—is far different from my Crusader brethren's. I belief it is an entity—a supreme being that has shaped us all. They believe it to be a set of ideals, which they have perverted for their own use. Thou wilt find that the Forsaken have done similar. Ideals are far easier to pervert than gods, are they not?"_

"So why are you different?" Yamato asked, calmly opening a utility pouch on his belt and removing a small black ball—a soldier pill–and popped it into his mouth and relished the increased stamina and dulling of the pain in his wounds, which had begun to exhaust him even further. "Why believe something different from all the rest?"

"_I could pose thee the same question," _the Ghost said. "_Why believe anything different? Because we are raised to; because it suits us better than another belief does; because it holds a special significance to us due to some event in our lives."_

"I thought you guys were big on conformity," Yamato said.

"_I am different from them. I serve according to my own beliefs, not theirs."_

"So why do they serve?"

"_Because they cannot help but. They have been maddened by darkness."_ The Ghost cleaned off his blades using his scarlet pant-leg. You could hardly tell there was blood on him. "_They have been deceived. I chose not to be. I must hold God in my heart, I must see the truth. They cannot see the truth, because it would unmake them. It would destroy everything that they believe in, and they could not accept that."_

"And it doesn't for you?"

"_I recognize that some evils are necessary," _he said. "_For I know that God shall forgive me, in the end."_

"How convenient for you then," said Yamato. "You believe something different because it suits you better."

"_No," _the Ghost said, lowering himself into a battle stance. "_It is because I was raised to."_

He shot straight across the room at Yamato, who flung out his hand. Five small barbs erupted from his fingertips, but the Ghost saw this and jumped over them, arcing through the air and landing but a foot away from Yamato. His swords flew out, but Yamato moved back, and thrust out his other hand, sending more barbs. The Ghost crossed his blades and blocked, and then swung them again. Yamato's arms became lined with wood, and he blocked the hits easily. Tiny vines then wrapped around the blades, pinning them to Yamato's arms, and allowing the shinobi a full target. The Ghost realized this, let go of his weapons and kicked, but it was too late. Yamato spat one last barb, which struck the Ghost in the right shoulder. Though it was barely the size of a thumbtack, the barb was laden with enough of Yamato's _chakra_ to make it expand to the size of a small oak, which it began to do as soon as it pierced the Ghost's flesh.

Yamato had spent the entire time they had talked building up the attack.

The Ghost flung himself backwards as vines began to shoot out of his shoulder, wrapping around his chest and creeping up towards his neck. They began to burst from his right arm as well, shredding it like paper and making blood fountain. The Ghost did not scream nor did he flail back in blinding pain.

Instead he raised a hand, summoning a blade of light, and with the detached precision of a surgeon he removed the chunk of his shoulder and the entire arm that had been infested with Yamato's vine.

Shit, Yamato thought. He'd never seen anybody do something like that. The pain must have been beyond anything imaginable. Yet the Ghost did not cry out or even seem to be panting, or show any sign of strain. Even as the blade cauterized the wound, stopping the flow of blood, the Ghost remained as silent as ever.

Breathing slowly out, the Ghost summoned another blade. It floated but inches from where his arm used to be, and he rushed at Yamato again.

It was frightening how persistent he was. Perhaps Yamato had made a mistake.

The man was not much different from the rest of the Crusaders.

He knew he couldn't block the Ghost's attacks now. It would be too dangerous. He dodged and weaved away from each strike, noticing that even as the man grew faster, he did not appear angrier, nor did he become clumsier. In fact he seemed to grow sharper and more deft with each swing, until with each one he managed to clip Yamato's person—just barely—sometimes hitting nothing but cloth, other times just barely nicking the flesh.

The fight grew faster, dirtier and both knew it would soon end. Yamato was always on the defensive, having no chance to even make a seal or gather _chakra_. The soldier pill kept him going, but that was it. He would not win if it continued like this. But no chance presented itself. He saw no way in the scant second between attacks to get in a hit, or to reverse the situation. He couldn't weaken the Ghost; he needed to finish him in one blow.

The Ghost suddenly changed. He backed off, and fired the blade at Yamato, raising his remaining hand and making a half-seal.

The blade made a sound like nails on glass, and exploded.

Yamato flung up his arms to protect himself. Thousands of tiny blades struck his flesh, peppering his arms and chest and legs with wounds so small that a pin could barely fit through one. But they were so numerous that the flesh on his arms seemed to peel away, and blood began to flow copiously. He grit his teeth, willing himself not to scream as the Ghost flew at him, forming one last blade, intending to end the fight.

His arms useless, Yamato couldn't attack, and could hardly move from the pain in his legs. He only stared at the Ghost, who ran with the same fervor as the Crusaders Yamato had seen before him, but his eyes were different. There was no rage, no passion, no zeal. Nothing. He had fully accepted the truths of his doctrine into his heart, so much so that he did not blind himself with its glory. He did not let it consume him, let it fill him with the hatred of every other faith because of the doubt in his own. But nor was the doubt entirely gone, like the Crusader's, whose faith was so great that whatever they were commanded to do in the name of it they would do without question. He accepted everything about his doctrine, and did not care about others. He did not care if his was the right or the wrong, he just followed it. But nor was he fighting Yamato on basis of his faith alone. He was doing it as he had been ordered, as if he were a shinobi himself. He was fighting because it would dishonor him and his master _and_ his faith.

Yamato could understand him.

He could understand what made this man fight.

The Ghost stumbled suddenly, not as if he had tripped, but as if something had struck him violently in the chest. He clutched at it shaking, and the blade near his arm vanished as he stumbled a few more feet forwards, until he was right next to Yamato.

The Ghost said nothing. His crystal eyes stared at Yamato the entire time, even as they clouded and became unfocused.

Yamato said nothing. He stared at the Ghost as if his face were masked too.

The Ghost slid back, and then crumpled to the floor, his heart stopped by the last remnants of Yamato's vine, which had buried too deep into his body before he had managed to remove it. It had slowly traveled through his circulatory system until it had filled his heart from the inside out, suffocating it.

The room was filled with perfect silence, until Yamato took one step forwards and clapped his hands together, bowing his head slightly over the Ghost's corpse, and closing his eyes.

"_Namu ami dabutsu."_

* * *

Their walk took them back to the large entrance hall before the Grand Crusader's chamber. It was now filled with Scarlet Crusaders, standing all in a line and staring perfectly straight ahead of them. Demetria skipped between them, as if they were a row of flowers, while Kira trailed behind, every so often glancing at their emotionless faces. Behind them she noticed the giant Crusader in the horned helmet, standing in front of the closed marble doors and staring straight at her. She shivered.

They stopped at the golden doors, and didn't enter. A moment later, a door slammed and Kira turned to see one of the most horrible men alive, dragging a leather sack, walk across the pristine marble floor and then up the red carpet towards her. The man looked like a skeleton, thin and bony, with wild stringy hair and even wilder eyes. He was whispering something she couldn't make out the entire time he walked, hefting the cargo with great difficulty and wheezing in between his mutterings. But he seemed happy, to her disgust.

"Interrogator Alcond," Demetria said, smiling. "Couldn't you have been more gentle with such precious cargo?"

"Precious? Wretched!" the man snapped, then looked down and mumbled, "but very precious yes…so ever precious." He dragged the chained up sack past Kira, and into the Grand Crusader's room. When Kira saw the feet dragging from beneath the sack, she choked and stumbled back, horrified. She could see the blood all over Sakura's feet, and even smell it along with a number of other unpleasant things. She very nearly called out the girl's name, but Demetria laid a hand on her arm.

"She's just fine, I think you'll find. Don't make a scene, little princess." She guided Kira into the room, and the door shut with a boom behind them.

The Grand Crusader sat in his throne, as monstrous as ever, his small, terrible eyes fixed on Alcond and the sack. He waited until Demetria pranced forwards, wrapping her arms around his leg and laying her head against his thigh. "I bring to you, Your Holiness, the shinobi girl that I've sought to turn."

He glared down at her, and then at the sack. "Is she alive?"

"Quite." She waved to Alcond, who gave a quick nod and unfastened the chains from around the sack, and then carefully lifted it off. When the sack had reached Sakura's now clothed chest, she demonstrated how true Demetria's words were by thrusting her arm out, striking Alcond full in the stomach. The blow was so powerful that Alcond likely perished before he even hit the wall, which he struck with enough force to create a crater twice the size of his own body, which was nothing more than pulp at this point. He crumpled to the floor in a bloody heap as Sakura stood up and thrust off the rest of the sack.

She fixed her eyes instantly on Demetria, who remained attached to The Grand Crusader, smiling coyly. Sakura shot forwards, bringing her arm back for a stone-dusting punch, her eyes furious. For a second Kira thought she would be successful, but that didn't last. The Grand Crusader leaned forwards and caught her around the middle, hurtling her violently backwards. She struck the wall just to the left of the door, making a much smaller crater than Alcond before crumpling to the ground, spitting blood and moaning.

Kira instantly went to her side, placing her hand against Sakura's stomach and then her back, and gathering healing _chakra_ to her aid. Sakura looked up briefly, looking straight into her eyes, before looking down again, and muttering something Kira couldn't hear.

"What?" Kira whispered.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said.

"Now, now," said Demetria, detaching herself from the giant and walking towards them. "This isn't a private party. You shouldn't—" She stopped speaking when the ground shook, and a loud boom echoed through the room. Demetria frowned and looked at the doors.

It was happening just outside.

"It matters not," the Grand Crusader said, his voice hot with anger. "The Highlord will deal with it, whatever it is. The other shinobi, I suspect."

"No doubt," Demetria said.

"The Ghost has headed off the other ones. But they all must be destroyed or turned now."

"The Highlord," said Demetria mockingly, "won't kill them. I've made sure of that. Our healers may have difficulty healing them, but they will live, and will join our little pink-haired cutie and our little princess in our ranks." She glanced at the two girls, smiling. "Are you getting all of this?"

Other shinobi? Kira thought. Then that meant that Naruto had come! He was here! He could—no. She stopped herself, with only a look at Sakura. She couldn't rely on him. Naruto was fighting his own battle, and they had theirs to fight. Kira turned to Demetria, staring straight into her ever-changing eyes and her beautiful face that was so like her mother's.

"Come now," said Demetria. "We have a ritual to complete. Your Holiness, if you may?"

The Grand Crusader reached to the side, and lifted up his monstrous blade, which he laid across his lap. He put a finger on the edge, and ran it along the entire length, coating it in a layer of his blood, which was more black than red. Demetria walked towards Kira and Sakura, the latter just beginning to recover. Kira made a seal and raised her hand, intending to fight her mother's double.

Demetria didn't let her, by swooping forwards and striking both of them in the head with her finger. Kira suddenly couldn't move, or rather, she couldn't move on her own. She was standing, and soon walking towards the Grand Crusader, who now stood, and seemed as huge as half the room. Sakura was right by her side, looking as strained, furious and terrified as she felt. The Grand Crusader lifted his sword into the air, holding it above them. They both turned their heads up, and opened their mouths.

"Let the fire," the Grand Crusader said, "consume you."

A drop formed on the tip of the blade, right above Sakura's mouth. She just stared at it, unable to move, unable to close her eyes. She didn't know what was going to happen but she knew that she couldn't stop it any longer. She was powerless. Kira had been right. She needed somebody, and that somebody wasn't going to come. She was going to lose herself here, and it was because of a few stupid mistakes, mistakes that she should have never let herself make. She wanted to close her eyes.

She didn't want to see her life fall in a drop of blood.

But it wasn't a drop of blood that fell.

It was an elf dressed in red.

The ceiling burst open and she fell like a sinning angel, her sword raised back in preparation for a massive chop. The Grand Crusader heard the sound, and looked up, seeing in the last few moments a woman with pale gold hair roaring down, and swing a huge blade down onto his bared neck, smiting him with such force that when she struck the ground, the room shook as if a meteor has struck it. His head fell like a rock onto the floor, and his neck spurted a geyser of nearly black blood across the now ruined marble floor. In that second after, both Sakura and Kira regained their ability to move, and Kira shouted what they were both thinking.

"Run!"

Demetria stared like a child transfixed by her own parent's murdered bodies. The Grand Crusader's headless form took one step and then fell, crashing heavily into the ground, while the pale-haired elf stood, grinning triumphantly. She and Myrdraxxis had arrived just above the Grand Crusader's room, and it hadn't been difficult to sense the monstrous presence beneath them. The only thing that had bothered Hisari was that it hadn't felt like a human down there. But that hardly mattered now.

Demetria then saw the two younger girls flee, and snarled like a rabid dog. She took off after them, glancing once over her shoulder to shout to the elf girl.

"Good luck, beautiful!"

She pushed open the doors and disappeared.

Hisari stared after the woman, not understanding her words. She felt, however, that they had been more a warning than an honest well-wishing, and she felt a chill down her spine suddenly. It was quite unconnected with the feeling of power and victory she felt at slaying her opponent in one blow, and it was not pleasant. Then she heard a slight shuffling—the sound of cloth on stone, and the clink of metal armor.

The Grand Crusader, headless, was standing. Where his head had once been was now a black blob, which was growing bigger and bigger, even as his body grew smaller and smaller. His muscles shriveled and skin wrinkled and his bones shrank, and the black mass grew wings and horns and then arms and legs; soon it had an outline as well. A buzzing accompanied the mass's growth, growing louder and louder until it seemed as if the entire room were filled with huge, buzzing insects. When the Grand Crusader's body was no larger than a child's, the black mass stopped growing, and the last things it grew were eyes.

Small, crimson eyes.

"_**How embarrassing. My brothers always told me that I was absent-minded. It seems that they were correct."**_

* * *

Naruto backed slowly away, panting heavily. Blood ran down the side of his head, making it hard to see from his right eye. Sai stood next to him, in no better condition than he. The boy was not smiling now—his eyes were focused, and his face now truly emotionless. He was staring at their opponent, and the giant Crusader was staring right back, holding the monstrous sword parallel with the floor.

"Good," he said, like an instructor observing a student. "But your attacks are cowardly and weak. Neither will aid you in combat."

"You're very kind," said Sai, smiling again. "To give me such an informative lecture during our battle, but please do not. This is a time for fighting, not words."

The giant nodded. "Of course."

Sai's brush, wet with ink, conjured a cloud of _kunai _which the giant easily blocked, his blade flickering like a strobe-light in a circular motion, hacking them into small clouds of ink. Naruto rushed forwards at the same time, his blade glowing light blue with _chakra_. He aimed a strike at the giant's knees, while a clone stepped on his back and went for the giant's neck.

But the giant slammed his head into the clone's nose, dispelling it with a violent cracking sound, and then whirled his blade down, knocking Naruto's sword from his hand, sending it spinning across the floor. Naruto jumped back, summoning more clones, but the giant's blade moved with god-like speed and dispelled them just as quickly as he summoned them. He struck out with a kick, but it did nothing but make a metal thud when it struck the man's breastplate, and make him lose his balance when the giant moved forwards at the same time as the kick. The giant then kicked Naruto swiftly in the side, and backhanded him out of the way with his gauntlet. Naruto shot like a bullet backwards, rolling across the floor until he hit the wall.

"That will not work," the giant said. He spun and advanced on Sai, who had drawn another creation—a pack of wolves. They leapt from the page, becoming almost as tall as Sai himself, and ran at the giant, howling distantly, as if they were not truly there. Their claws raked his armor, causing superficial damage, but even their strength did not deter the man from his charge, straight at Sai. The boy lowered himself and leapt high into the air, sending another rain of painted _kunai _down atop the giant. The giant ignored them this time. When he reached the spot Sai had just jumped from, he stopped and threw his sword into the air, straight at the falling shinobi.

Naruto saw this. "Idiot!" he roared, picking himself up and vanishing in a blur of motion. In half a second he had reached the place Sai would have been skewered, only to see one of his wolves leap up and absorb the sword's deadly flight, allowing Sai to reach the ground unharmed.

Sai's face was completely emotionless.

And for once, Naruto thought, it looked natural. Nothing in his face was fake or forced. He looked completely comfortable bearing not a single sign of emotion. His body moved smoothly, without a bit of labor from fury, frustration or pain. His black eyes showed nothing, not even an ounce of something, and it coincided exactly with the rest of his face. Even as he recovered from one attack, he prepared another, this one slightly different from the last, as if testing by trial and error what would be most effective in defeating the so far unstoppable "milord". He looked exactly as a shinobi should in battle.

He looked exactly like a tool.

Naruto twirled as the giant defeated Sai's next attack by breaking the neck of the painted panther he had created. Naruto created a clone, and sent it to retrieve his sword, as he rushed at the giant, making a few seals as he did. The giant punched him in the chest, but with a hiss, he took it, hardening his muscles with the _Kongou_. The giant did not seem affected by his resistance, or surprised by his attack. Instead, he punched Naruto in the face this time. The blow hurt—quite a lot—but Naruto remained standing, having hardly budged and inch. He roared and drove his fist into the giant's stomach, and forcefully ejected the _chakra_ he had built up earlier.

"_Katon: Kaenhira!"_

The blast slammed into the giant, blasting him back and shattering his breastplate. He uttered a low "umph" and stumbled a few times, but remained standing. Naruto seized his chance.

His clone threw his sword across the room. Naruto caught it, and gathered _chakra_ into it, before launching himself at the giant, who was clutching the charred wound on his stomach. Naruto roared and used _Kazaashi_ to move right up to the giant, swinging the blade downwards. But the giant moved with sudden, vicious force and slammed his fist into Naruto's stomach, and then grabbed the boy by the arms and thrust him away. Naruto landed on his back, sliding across the floor, until the giant came up and stomped on his right hand, making him let go of his sword with an awful cry.

"You are not alert," the giant said. "And your companion has not once attacked in the confusion of those last few moments."

Sai, for once, didn't answer. He did not move from where he stood.

The giant kicked Naruto's sword away, and then stomped on the boy's stomach. Naruto could not cry out as the air left his lungs completely and he issued a strangled gasp and spat up blood. The giant then reached down, and grabbed hold of Naruto's neck.

"One should not," the giant said, "leave an enemy alive when he can just as easily destroy him. I will not make that mistake with you again, boy."

Naruto choked, and tried to speak, but he couldn't, so he just pointed.

The giant turned, just as Naruto's blade speared him in the back, going straight through his left shoulder. The giant reared up as Naruto's previously created clone ripped the blade out and made to stab again. The giant got up and whirled around, battering the clone with the back of his fist and dispelling it.

When he turned, Naruto had gotten up and out of range. The boy, clutching his throat, was grinning.

"You are not alert," Naruto mimicked, spitting some blood onto the floor. "Bastard."

The giant moved his left arm experimentally, and seemed to find the pain bearable. He seemed prepared to attack again, and Naruto had managed to stand when with a loud boom, the golden doors behind him flew open.

Two figures—one sporting golden hair and dressed in white robes, the other with pink and dressed in little more than a ripped peasant's shirt, flew from the Grand Crusader's chamber, making straight for the side door nearest them. Naruto turned at the sound, but had smelled them both long before he recognized them, and when he did, his eyes grew wide.

"Sakura-chan? Kira-chan?"

Neither stopped in their pursuit, but Sakura glanced once at him, giving him a look that he couldn't register before it was gone. They disappeared through the side door.

And then another person left the Grand Crusader's hall, smiling: the golden haired woman Naruto had seen before.

"Fordragon, you dog! Remember that these children are precious cargo!" she cried, and continued then in the same direction the two girls had left. "Don't kill them!"

"Of course mistress," the giant said. "You need not worry."

"Ever the faithful hound."

Then the woman was gone too.

Naruto stared after her, just beginning to comprehend the situation. He didn't know why or how they were here, but he felt a sudden desire to find them. In fact, he suddenly needed to go after them. He needed to protect them.

The look Sakura had given him dawned on him.

"Oi! Sai! Can you beat this bastard?" he cried to the boy.

"I don't know," the boy said, smiling. "But I know I could with your help."

Naruto grit his teeth. He felt an urge to just leave the boy there alone. He almost acted on it too.

But then, he felt something stir within him. It was a white-hot flash in his stomach, not unlike what he had felt when he had used the Kyuubi's _chakra_. But it was different; he felt no power from it, only anger.

Then, he felt something stir behind him.

In the room that Sakura and Kira had just exited, he felt something horrible. Sai felt it too, because he was looking at the door, although his face showed nothing. It was something huge. Something hot.

Something awfully familiar.

* * *

Fen felt the building shake.

It was not a violent shake, only a slight tremor that was enough to awake him from his dozing and draw his attention away from the door that Naruto and Sai had entered what seemed like hours ago. He glanced down the street both ways, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He saw all manner of disgusting zombies, ghouls and nearly every other variety of walking dead, but nothing large enough to make the building shake noticeably. But a moment later, it shook again, and then again, and then the sound reached his ears above the din of the ghostly city.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

The sound was a mixture of broken glass and ruined stone, rotted wood and rusted metal falling into a gigantic heap all at once. Three buildings in the distance fell within minutes of each other, the dust rising over the tops of the other houses so that Fen could see. Another fell very near to his, just down the street from it, in fact. Though he no longer had a working heart, he felt desperation and a hint of fear rise up in him as whatever was toppling the buildings approached. It came into view a second later, barreling down the street towards the courtyard.

"_**STEIN UM STEIN!"**_

Ramstein entered the courtyard not through the street, but through the buildings surrounding it. Its body seemed completely repaired from before. New stitches lined its skull and two of its arms, all of which had been reattached, and it sported a new chain and two very new weapons in its meaty fists—one a gigantic sickle, the other a giant carving knife drenched in ichor and dust. It smashed its way into the courtyard and ran straight at the bastion doors, which were as big as it was. It began to hammer on the door with its weapons, raising a god-awful cry from the Scourge about it. It bellowed to them in their own, unintelligible language, and they too began to assault the doors; they scratched and bit and banged on the heavy metal doors, while larger and larger dents began appearing, dealt by Ramstein.

What the hell are they doing? He wondered, staring at the door as it grew closer and closer to resembling a crushed tin can. What the hell had gotten into them? Was Ramstein still sore about losing to Naruto? Did he even remember? Was he trying to find the boy, or had he been ordered to attack the bastion?

And who had repaired him?

Then, somehow, over the bangs and the howls, Fen heard hoof beats.

The air seemed to chill significantly. Fen scrambled away from the edge of the building, the skin around his eyes growing taught in surprise.

A black rider appeared at the end of the street, and Fen knew that whatever plan they had made was now shot to shit. He scrambled to his feet and _blinked_ across the street, running along the rooftops towards the side of the bastion.

Screw the plan, he thought. We need to leave, _now_.

* * *

Well I'm back, and sorry for the achingly long wait. I had a grand time in Africa, but I'm glad to be back home as well. I did miss anime!

How was the chapter? I found it a little hard to get back into the rhythm, but I hope you guys like it. Next chapter is probably the last big chapter for this arc. Expect lots of battles!

And remember, tell me if this chapter sucks!

And lastly, before I go—for those following the manga recently, who hopes that Sasuke dies? Won't go into more detail than that for those who aren't up, but I really hope he dies, even though it would be completely irrational if he did. I just really want him to…die…

Anyways, see you next week hopefully!

General Grievous


	19. The Fall

_Disclaimer: I had no idea! My god! It's something that I had never conceived of before—I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft!_

_Hold me._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

_It was a clearing. In that clearing was people. Many, many people, of all ages and both sexes (though there appeared more women than men, and more children than adults), all piled together in one great, big heap._

_And none of them were alive, either._

_Demi did not quite see what was before her for a moment. It was hard to see because the fog was particularly thick here, and there was a moistness in the air that clung to her lips and eyes and made her blink furiously for a few moments, before she could look again. In that time she heard only a buzzing, and smelled what she would soon see._

_Death._

_The pile of corpses was so large that it might have been a small hill. There was so much blood—it covered the ground in a sticky marsh all around the human hill, and the smell was so intense that it was sickening. Body parts too littered the ground, like fungi in a dense swamp, and some of them had been stuck in the ground in rings like the fairy circles that Demi saw all the time in her wanderings of Elwynn Forest with Kira. The air was filled with flies buzzing madly around the corpses, creating the humming sound that they had heard before seeing the pile; and among the hundreds of men, women and children in the pile were thousands upon thousands of maggots blissfully fulfilling their duty in nature, eating out the eyes and chest cavities and faces of these people, whose faces were twisted in awful horror. Not a one had died peacefully. Even the youngest toddlers had died in absolute agony, and they looked no different from the terrified faces of their mothers and fathers. They all seemed to scream, and Demi thought she could hear them too; screaming madly as they tried to escape whatever fate had befallen them. _

That's what we call community spirit, isn't it?

_Demi began to shake. She wandered towards the hill, staring at all the death and saying something under her breath that she couldn't hear. All she could hear was screaming. _

_There was a child in front of her, a little girl. The little girl was naked and had probably suffered a fate far worse than her father or mother had. Her neck was broken and she could still see the pretty, purple irises staring up at her through the white clouds in her eyes. _

'_Kira?' Demi whispered. 'Kira? Wake up, I'm here.' She didn't look at all like Kira, really. But she had eyes like Kira, so pretty and purple, though now they were far from pretty. It was the eyes she fixed upon, the eyes that drew her in. They were Kira's eyes and it didn't matter if it was an entirely different girl and Kira was far away, safe and sound, tucked away in her castle._

'_Kira?'_

_The little girl screamed at her something unintelligible. She kneeled beside the little girl and began to stroke her bruised face. She was still muttering to herself, not quite believing what was happening. She saw the pile of dead and yet she didn't. This girl was Kira and yet wasn't. She didn't understand._

'_Kira?'_

_Fordragon was standing by the trees, staring at his mistress with wide eyes. He started forwards._

'_Demi,' he began._

_She didn't answer._

'_What are you doing?'_

I'm in the process, you stupid dog, of making a major change in my life. So please leave me alone.

'_Kira?' Demi said, softly, and continued to stroke the girl's face._

_It kept screaming at her, but she couldn't hear what it was saying. She asked it to speak louder but it didn't._

'_That isn't Lady Kira,' said Fordragon. 'Demi, that isn't your daughter.'_

'_Yes it is,' Demi finally said, looking up at him. 'See? Wake up, Kira.'_

'_That isn't Kira, Demi,' Fordragon said, with more force. 'Let us go, now. We must locate who committed this atrocity. We must—'_

'_I didn't want to leave you,' said Demi, 'but I had to. I had to help. My family never did, so I had to. I did it because it became my duty—surely you would understand that? They never would. But I hope that you don't have to do it. I hope that you don't…'_

_Fordragon walked towards her, and laid a hand on her shoulder. 'Demi, that is not her. We must go. This place is…'_

Beautiful. It's like a garden of love.

'_Why should I leave my daughter again?'_

'_That is not her. '_

_Demi looked up at him. 'It is.'_

'_Stop smiling, Demi.'_

_She looked up at him. 'I'm not.'_

_There was movement in the trees. Fordragon stood, and drew his sword. From the woods right before him, a group of men emerged. They were dressed in scarlet armor and carried a scarlet banner, and were staring stoically forwards, their faces drenched in scarlet blood._

_Fordragon growled. 'What are you doing here?'_

'_This is our land, fool,' one of them said. 'Thou must leave.'_

'_You did this. What kind of monsters are you?"_

'_They were infected,' another said. He was thin as a bone, but stood proudly up and had stern, raptor-like eyes that in a few years would be clouded by madness, just as his body would become hunched and gnarled. 'They are to be burned today, so that their souls might reach heaven unencumbered by the rot of the undead Plague. We relieved them of a curse.'_

_Fordragon's eyes narrowed and he snarled. 'They were innocent.'_

_Another of the Crusaders looked straight at him; his eyes were crystal blue and there was a soft lilt in his voice, and his face was so common that he seemed to appear from nowhere. 'According to whom?'_

'_Fire?' Demi was staring at the flames emblazoned on their tabards, showing that they were of the Scarlet Crusade. 'I see fire. Blood. Death. For all of us.'_

That is what you'll see for a long time.

'_Demi, get up. We are leaving,' said Fordragon._

We'll do no such thing.

_Demi looked down. 'But I can't leave her again.'_

'_That is not Lady Kira!'_

It is, dog. It always will be. How do you think she cares so much?

'_What?' Fordragon was staring at Demi. 'What did you say?_

They are all her. They always have been. She does all of this for her. But she was stupid and weak, and didn't notice it at all. Didn't notice that it was stupid to put all of the worst emotions she could feel in the back of her mind, and let them congeal and rot and grow until they were so diseased that her mind could no longer contain it. She is a stupid little child, isn't she? It won't matter any longer, however. That pile of rotten feelings is thinking that it is time for somebody else to take over. We outnumber her, in any case.

'_Demi? What's wrong with you?'_

_The Crusaders were staring too. Demi was standing._

_But she wasn't Demi any more. She stood up straight and tall and thrust her chest out impressively. Her hair whipped back, like liquid gold, and slid down across her back and across her face, across her very red lips and her seductive smile, and just barely covering her eyes, which were only visible now to Fordragon, who was right in front of her. He could not move, as he stared at her._

"_Demi?" he whispered again._

"You only said half the letters," _she said. _"I am Demetria. Lady Demetria, if you please—who is this Demi of which you speak?"

_Fordragon took a step back. Her eyes. There was something wrong with her eyes._

_They were like landfills of emotion—poisoned, rotten emotion._

"You all seem like nice dogs—want to become my pets?" _she said, with that infernal smile._

* * *

Kira and Sakura ran through the long, straight corridors of the Scarlet Bastion. Kira was leading Sakura, though pink-haired shinobi did not look well. Her eyes were heavily lidded and she stumbled every so often. The effects of her torture were catching up to her, she knew, and she didn't know how much longer she would be able to keep running.

"Where are we going?"

"To get Kylia and Tsuwabuki," said Kira, breathless from running. "And find a place to fight _her._"

Sakura gasped as well. Strength was draining from her like blood from a vicious wound. She felt like she might collapse, and her legs were beginning to cramp from overuse after so long being suspended in mid-air. But she continued to run as fast as her legs could carry her, straining them to keep up with Kira, probably the only reason she was still running. She felt at first humiliated, but then a sense of calmness entered her. She had apologized, had admitted that she had been wrong and Kira had been right. She had no reason to fight with Kira any more, and Kira was doing what she could to help Sakura.

Sakura needed her.

She and Kira reached the door where Kylia and Tsuwabuki were. Kira looked at Sakura for aid this time.

"Can you break it open?" she asked.

Sakura took a few heaving breaths, but managed a nod. She made a fist, and reached back, hammering the door with some of her remaining strength. It worked—the door imploded inwards; Kylia yelped from within, and Tsuwabuki let out a bark very different from a dog's. She immediately flew at the door, past Sakura and Kira—whom she brushed up against as she went—and fled down the hallway. Kira felt a spike of worry for the fox—if she encountered Demetria, what would she do? But she knew she couldn't do much to help, other than wish the fox luck in finding Naruto, as she was doubtlessly looking for him.

"Where now?" Sakura muttered, looking at Kira.

The girl frantically gazed around. "A room," she said. "We have to find a room, and then get you fixed up before she comes."

"How do you even know she is coming?" Sakura asked. She glanced behind her, however, just in case Demetria's leering face poked around the corner.

"I don't know, but I don't care. I guess talking with her a lot has given me some semblance of ability in predicting what she's doing to do. I just don't know where she's coming from. We have to find a place, too, that's good enough to fight her in."

"A large room," said Kylia, softly.

"She's right," Sakura said. "We're at a disadvantage in a hallway. There're three of us and one of her."

"Okay," said Kira. She began to run again, moving down the hallway away from the throne room. She still had no idea where she was going, but there had to be a big room somewhere here where they could fight her! Kira was done with it all. She had to fight now, she had to show that stupid—_bitch_—that she wasn't a stupid little girl who couldn't do anything. She wanted to show Sakura the same. Before she could apologize, she had to show Sakura that she was more than a pampered princess.

And she had to show herself, too. That she could do just as much without Naruto at her side.

Kira spotted a pair of doors, and grinned. She thrust them open and was met with success. A wide, rectangular room—probably once a dining hall and now stocked so full of weapons and armor that it could have armed every soldier in Stormwind—but more than enough room to fight with the Scarlet Oracle, without being at a disadvantage. She looked at Sakura, who was glancing around the room, her eyes bleary.

"Are you okay? Did any of that blood touch you?"

"No," Sakura muttered, rubbing her eyes. "To the second question at least. I don't think so. But I need some stamina. You have anything that could provide that?"

Kira thought a moment, hoping desperately that she did. She knew she needed Sakura in this fight. She knew she wasn't strong enough to defeat Demetria by herself. She scoured every inch of her knowledge of the healing arts. What could provide Sakura with enough stamina?

"You can have some of mine," Kira suddenly whispered. "Come here! We don't have much time!"

* * *

_You have one last chance._

"For what?" Demetria said aloud, as she strolled along the hallway. She did not need to rush—they weren't going anywhere. They would fight. The princess had been eager to prove herself and the shinobi girl always fought her. She could take her time, and let the fight become more interesting. How would they try to counter her? It gave her a feeling like Winter Veil morning to think about. What surprise would she be given by these pretty, little nymphs?

_To turn back!_

"Why would I turn back?" She answered the voice in her head aloud. "When I will have so much fun if I keep going?"

_You think that…why?_

"I know it. I am the Scarlet Oracle, after all."

_But you cannot predict anything! How can you have fun, too, when your time will soon be up?_

"Up?" Demetria stopped at that. "You think so?"

_I know it._

"Do you?" she cackled. "You don't even exist!"

_To you, I do._

Demetria laughed again, and continued to walk. She walked until she came to a pair of double-doors. She could feel them. Behind the door they were waiting for her to arrive, waiting for her to fight. Each of them had something to prove.

Could they prove it to her?

* * *

His insides twisted and flailed as if the demon, chained deep within it, was trying to break free. Naruto could _feel_ its hatred and its fury, boiling up in him like a volcano ready to explode. He stared at the golden door, and felt like he wanted to blow it apart and charge into the room and face whatever it is that was making him feel so awful, but he too felt like staying and helping Sai, as well as going after Sakura and Kira, who were probably in just as great a danger as he was.

He was torn. Did he help his teammate—whom he didn't particularly like—or did he satiate his curiosity and the demon within him, or did he help his two much closer friends, who might not even need his help? He glanced at each problem in turn, gritting his teeth harder and growing ever more frustrated. Sai was still staring at the door, his head cocked slightly to the side. He was quite oblivious to the killing intent, but he had heard what sounded like a voice earlier, and now a faint buzzing was coming from behind the door. He wondered what could be behind it. He then swung his gaze around.

Fordragon was staring at it too, and though his face was covered, he seemed to be frowning, or at least perturbed by the horrible killing intent emanating from behind the door. This was only due to him shuffling a little, which was quite out of place for his normally solid stature.

So His Holiness, he thought, has revealed himself? That is disturbing. Little could force him to transform, short of a mortal wound. He remembered the two girls who had run out earlier. Had it been one of them? Impossible. His mistress was there—though, he conceded, that accounted for nothing. She would probably care little if someone had slain the Grand Crusader, in fact he knew she would probably enjoy it. Her tastes favored that, and she would probably be curious to see what would happen.

But his attention too, soon fell away from what was behind the door, to what was in front of it. The blonde boy was distracted. He would not miss the chance to remove the boy from the fight.

He charged with powerful, echoing steps, making Naruto glance towards him, and reflexively backpedal. But he couldn't do it as quickly as Fordragon attacked, and the giant was soon looming over him, slamming one fist down towards Naruto's skull. Naruto twisted to the side, avoiding it, but was caught in the side by another. It stole his breath and sent a wave of fire through his stomach and intestines, making his knees buckle. He used _Kongou_—just barely—to absorb another blow aimed at his head. The strike was strong enough to knock him slightly off balance, but deflected enough of the force that Naruto wasn't unconscious. He jumped back, but Fordragon continued his assault, until Sai arrived.

Fordragon was struck in the side by a _kunai_, driven in between the cracks in his armor, and hissing from the explosive note attached to its handle. Naruto saw it and scampered back, while Fordragon pulled it immediately out and tossed it into the air, having seen Naruto's reaction.

It exploded above them in a spectacular flash, shaking the room and illuminating everything briefly with orange. The light even pierced the confines of the giant's helmet, where Naruto saw two eyes—like those of a raptor—whose gaze made Naruto feel small and weak like a rabbit without any shelter. But this lasted for only as long as Naruto could see his eyes. When they were gone, Naruto felt his strength and ego return, even greater than before, and he grit his teeth.

Sai attacked again.

Fordragon reacted. He smashed one of Sai's creations—a bear—out of the way and ran at the shinobi. Naruto ran for his sword. Fordragon punched at Sai, but hit nothing as Sai's lithe form slipped out of the way. He ducked and weaved around the giant, but did not attack. Fordragon recognized this, stepped back, and then stomped the ground with his boot.

It was as if an earthquake had started, as if Fordragon had stomped directly on the fault lines of one of the world's tectonic plates. The entire room shook, throwing Sai off-balance and removing Fordragon's sword from where it had become stuck in the wall, when he had thrown it earlier. The giant ran and caught the sword as it fell, turned, and threw it at Sai. The boy danced back, and it struck the floor, lodging itself in the ruined marble.

Naruto had retrieved his sword, too. He now stood nearer to the doorway that Sakura and Kira had entered, and once again, he found his feet locked by indecision.

He had seen that last exchange. Sai was doing well, and he was obviously faster than Fordragon. But he didn't know if Sakura and Kira needed his help at all. They were both perfectly capable individuals. But what about the situation behind the golden doors? The killing intent hadn't faded.

What the hell did he do?

Sai looked at his opponent, and finally smiled. It was so—interesting! How his brother would have loved to draw this scene. But he shook himself at that. What good was it thinking about his brother? He was dead.

That was the past.

Fordragon pulled his sword from the floor and swung it deftly around, before launching himself at Sai. Sai stayed far away from the giant, knowing that he was far more dangerous with his blade. He looked over at Naruto.

But the boy was not there.

Ah, he thought. I figured as much. She had been wrong, after all, hadn't she? What could this boy have done?

Sai tossed a smoke bomb onto the ground, making the room fill with purple smoke and smell strongly of rotten eggs. Fordragon frowned, and stopped.

"What good," he said aloud, "is it to deprive two of my senses, when I have two more, just as effective?"

He swung his blade around in a perfect arc before him. It was sudden and swift and cut the smoke like a knife through linen, and drew a painfully deep cut across Sai's arm. He cried out, and the giant Crusader rushed deeper into the smoke, barreling into the boy and thrusting him from the cloud, into fresh air. Fordragon followed with great strides, and kicked the boy in the stomach, and then aimed a kick at his head.

Instead he kicked a rigid arm, which pushed his foot away, and then smashed into his bare stomach. He felt it much harder than any previous blow, and gasped—the first sound of weakness he had uttered—stumbling back. His raptor eyes stared into Naruto's frozen blue ones.

"Don't touch him," he snapped.

_Don't touch him,_ another boy snapped, a long time ago when Sai had been a different person. _Or I'll kill you._

Sai looked up, and though he saw Naruto, he also saw somebody else. From the back, they looked kind of the same—both had broad shoulders and light hair and a voice that held some semblance of power and authority, despite the age difference—and skill difference—between the two warriors. Naruto even shook a little like him, from rage or exertion. It was such an amazing likeness that Sai forgot himself for a moment. He let his jaw drop a little, and his face morph into the first true emotion he had ever displayed in Naruto's presence (even though he could not see it). It was as if the past had come back, a past where Sai had been an entirely different person.

And he'd had a brother, too.

The blonde boy didn't say anything to Sai, but he did glance back, very briefly, to show Sai his eyes. They seemed to say: So you were a liar?

"You are a very strange shinobi," Fordragon said, staring at Naruto. "Instead of battling from the shadows like him, you face me directly. Interesting."

Naruto said nothing to that. His body tensed, and he looked ready to attack.

"Wait."

Naruto turned again, and looked at Sai. The boy was smiling again. But there was something less fake about the smile. It seemed more forced, as if true emotion was trying to push its way in, and was largely succeeding. But what he did not display on his face he displayed within his eyes, which bore a gleam now. Naruto was a little shocked by their appearance. He wanted to ask why the change, but Sai had already walked up beside him.

"Perhaps you should leave this to me."

"I thought you needed my help."

"So did I," said Sai. "A shinobi is always better in a team, as that decreases the chance of dying and thus of the mission failing. But when you protected me, I felt the strange need to compete with you. I believe they call it 'bonding'."

Naruto stared at him. He seemed to take that for confusion.

"Or," Sai said, "does that involve the pe—"

"Let's not go there," Naruto said, flushing slightly.

"Go after Sakura-san and Kira-sama. They will need your aid, will they not?"

"I don't know," Naruto said. "I don't think so anymore. They're fine on their own." He looked past the giant Crusader, who was standing patiently, waiting politely for them to finish their plan. He seemed in no hurry to end the battle. But then again, the woman had told him to take them alive. For what, Naruto had no idea. "But I think I'm going to see what's going on in that room. I don't think it's anything good."

"Very well," said Sai. "I will handle him and join you. It won't be hard."

"You think so?"

"Yes." Sai was smiling in an ever more peculiar way. It almost seemed as if he had a plan, and was displaying it on his face.

"Fine." Naruto flashed him a grin. "You're getting better, I think."

"At what?"

"Being real." Naruto then took off towards the golden doors, moving past Fordragon without trouble. The giant Crusader didn't even turn his head to acknowledge Naruto's presence, which was soon gone.

Not a second after he left, the door on the far side of the room burst open and Tsuwabuki came into the room, her teeth bared. She seemed a little put out that Naruto was nowhere to be seen, and then looked to Sai, who smiled. "I'm fine," he said, and gestured to the door. The fox stared at him a while longer, then nodded, and loped towards the golden doors, scampering through the crack that Naruto had left open, and where the sounds of battle now echoed through.

Sai then took out his sketchbook very carefully, the second one he had gotten since his brother's death and since his first sketchbook, and opened it, smiling. He couldn't quite understand how, but she had been right, hadn't she?

_Regardless of what you do or say, that boy will change you. Be warned. I don't expect to see that smile when you return here, brat._

She is very old, he thought, so it makes sense. I'll have to ask her about it more when I return.

"Please be warned, Sir Fordragon, is it?" At his nod, Sai gave a small bow, and drew out his inked brush. "I believe that this _jutsu_ I am going to use is going to be very painful, but I have worked my hardest on it since I have arrived here. Let me know how it is, okay?"

"I'll be sure to," the giant responded. "Perhaps I can teach you about art as well, shinobi."

"Don't count on it," the boy said. "I learned from the best."

* * *

Demetria thrust the door open. Inside she found the extra items that had been able to fit inside the proper armory, and three girls, all prepared for battle. As soon as she saw them, they attacked.

Kylia, who was standing far in the front, rushed at her. The hesitation and fear that she had displayed in Demetria's presence was gone and she seemed now totally determined to fight and kill the woman. She carried two daggers—obviously stolen from one of the many racks that carried them—one of which she threw with remarkable speed and accuracy at the Scarlet Oracle, while she held the other with the blade forwards but held low, aiming for Demetria's guts.

Neither would reach their mark.

Demetria made a seal, and an inky black substance rose from beneath her feet—her very shadow—covering her completely. The dagger slammed into her forehead, but flew straight through, hitting the wall behind her. Then, like a cloud of smoke blown by the wind, Demetria moved towards Kylia to meet her hand to hand, cackling viciously.

But then came the second attack, from Sakura, who had been standing just behind Kylia when the fight had started. Her fist did not strike Demetria, but nor had she aimed to. She slammed it into the floor, sending a ripple through the room that sent many boxes stacked up tumbling to the ground, spilling their dangerous contents onto the floor. She had not put in enough _chakra_ to completely shatter the floor—she only needed to throw Demetria off-balance enough for one of the following attacks to hit her. Kylia rammed her second blade into Demetria's stomach, but once again it hit nothing but smoky shadow. But the next attack didn't miss, issued from Kira, who stood in the very back of the room, the only long-range fighter of the group. She made a complicated hand sign and thrust her hands out, so that her thumbs and forefingers made a teardrop shape.

'_Shining Arrow'_

The attack was not so much an arrow as a stream of light that passed so quickly from Kira's hands to Demetria's arm—her true arm—and then burst in a flash of light which made Demetria scream and laugh at the same time. The black shadow recoiled from it, and Demetria's _jutsu_ dissipated.

But Demetria did not miss a step. She whipped around and slammed her palm into Kylia's chest, injecting her with a pulse of _chakra_ that would have killed her. But she did not die, because it hadn't hit her at all. A box of swords struck the ground in her place, and she now stood next to Sakura, slightly disoriented by the suddenness of the replacement. Sakura did not relax, because Demetria had already turned, but was not focusing on them any more.

'_Shadow Name: Dragon'_

Her shadow spread out long and thin beneath her, stretching across the length of the room in a heartbeat and rising from it was the head of a monstrous dragon. It was surrounded by an emerald light, but was black as jet and had teeth steel-colored teeth and no eyes. Kira had no time to put up a shield, so she leapt to the side, and the dragon smashed through the wall she had been standing against. It quickly whipped its head to the side, completely silent, and shot in her direction again, gnashing its teeth and slashing at her with its claws.

Demetria stood and turned to Sakura and Kylia, both of whom where moving. Sakura ran towards Kira, while Kylia ran at Demetria.

Demetria briefly touched her own forehead, and closed her eyes. She looked for a moment as if she was in rapture, as if filled with divine power.

Then she opened her eyes, and she laughed—a brutal cry—even as Kylia swung her dagger at the woman. But Demetria grabbed Kylia's wrist, punched her in the face, and then threw her across the room, all with incredible speed. But Demetria's attention did not linger, and she looked across the room.

The dragon tore through dozens of wooden boxes, hurtling shards and weapons in every direction. They rained down on Kira, who made her way desperately through the maze of boxes and weapons racks. Several swords fell in close proximity, and Kira, amidst the crashing of the boxes almost didn't notice them. One of them cut her down the arm, and she tripped over another lying on its side, slicing one of her shins and making her fall. She bit back a scream.

But the black dragon found her.

It slammed a tower of boxes aside, and approached her, the majority of its body still submerged in shadow. It did not roar and it did not growl, it just went towards her, its mouth open wide.

Kira made a hand sign, and gathered her _chakra_ into a ball in the middle of her stomach. She could not think about the dragon that was seconds away from killing her. She couldn't even move. Her master had told her that this spell required the utmost discipline, because it could be the one to save your life.

'_Mass Dispel'_

She touched her hands to the ground on either side of her, making light erupt from the ground in a circle around her, swirling up in a tornado above her, and then exploded in all directions. It struck the dragon, which turned to black smoke as the light poured outwards through the room. Kira stood a moment, quivering in shock, when Sakura reached her and grabbed her arm.

"Hold still," she hissed, healing Kira's freshly bleeding wound and then spinning back around to face Demetria, who was looking amused once again. Kylia had gotten to her feet but was bleeding from the nose and mouth, and her legs were shaking, though it was unclear if it was from exertion or fear. She picked up her dagger, very slowly, as if a sudden movement would bring Demetria's attention to her once more. Neither Sakura nor Kira had seen the exchange between the two.

Demetria smiled at them, and attacked again. She howled like a maddened dog and clapped her hands together as she did—it was almost comical, but coming from a woman of such beauty and with such cruelty in her eyes, it was terrifying.

'_Shadow Words: Pain Ice Fire Light Dark Fear!' _She chanted the words aloud, saying each with force tantamount to an ancient god creating the world. Then all at once, the room and everything in it seemed to disappear.

It was completely black, as if light didn't exist. But then, at the same moment, it was bright, brighter than anything on earth, as if they were standing on the surface of the sun. It became just as hot, but at the same time, it became so cold that they couldn't move. Things floated in the darkness, immaterial and hazy, but they were so horrifying that Kira, Kylia and Sakura began to scream regardless. It was a strange, unnatural fear that they couldn't stamp out and that drove them in all directions, drove them to struggle against the awful pain that boiled through their veins, both inside and out, and the heat and the cold, and the brilliant light and consuming darkness.

Demetria's laugh mixed in with their screams.

Pain assailed Kira so hard that she fell to her knees. The other effects seemed unimportant compared to the fiery pain that flowed through her veins and darkened her skin with bruises. She was screaming herself hoarse, and trying to move, trying to put her hands together to find a suitable conjunction of words to stop this, but she couldn't even move and she couldn't think past the pain, and everything was so loud in her ears that she couldn't—

Sakura came to realize that something was wrong first. The fear that was welling up in her was not natural and something inside of her—a great, furious voice a lot like her own, shouting at her to calm the fuck down and stand still. She had no reason to fear whatever those things were that floated around her, and some of them were even rather goofy looking.

She stopped, standing in the middle of complete shadow, which was at the same time complete light, and listened as the voice roared at her to stop being a moron because those things were impossible. It couldn't be light or dark at the same time, nor could it be hot and cold at the same time. That was stupid, because they were complete opposites of each other, and if something hot touched something cold, they both cooled or heated to a neutral temperature because that's how the world worked and no insane, golden-haired bimbo was going to say differently. Now that she thought about it too, the voice in her head seemed to be quite correct.

Lastly, the voice told her to buck up and take the pain, which had already begun to slowly fade, as had the other effects. The room came back into view. Demetria was standing there, smiling at her, but that didn't last. Before Sakura could move, the woman had crossed the room and punched her in the stomach, throwing her with numbing force against the wall. She gasped, dry heaving and trying to reclaim her stolen breath as she fell to the floor, blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth.

"How silly," Demetria said. "It seems your mind is still a bit hard to fool isn't it? You can't link Shadow Words that are opposites after all, which is why only fear and pain worked well enough." She sighed, dramatically. "You're really annoying, little shinobi girl. So annoying that I might just consider killing you, although that look," she was referring to Sakura's eyes, which were glaring at her with a determined, fierce hatred that seemed to say that as soon as she could move she'd wipe that smile off Demetria's face and tear her limb from limb.

"Is more arousing than anything I have ever seen." Demetria felt her blood boil with delight, and she matched the glare with one of her wild stares, all the emotions she currently felt mixed into one fierce look. She moved forwards, her mouth open and gleefully baring her perfect white teeth, which now seemed more like fangs.

"Die!" she roared.

Sakura moved forwards too, just as a wind swept past them, and Demetria was blasted from her feet and slammed against the wall, shattering the stone and sending cracks through its entire length. She gasped, heaving a generous amount of blood from her ruined lungs and chest, staring with inhuman fury at Kira. The girl was standing and had her hands thrust out, and they were glowing with a vaguely golden light that was just fading.

'_Banish Evil'_

"That…" Demetria began.

"Is used for banishing demons and Scourge," said Kira. She had a grim smile on her face, vaguely triumphant, vaguely pitying and also vaguely disgusted—at herself or Demetria it was unclear. "You showed me all of those Taints earlier," she said. "They're all over your body. I guess they make you more a demon than a human, hmm? I wonder what the Scarlet Crusade would say about that?"

Demetria slid off the wall into a staggering walk, her face twisted with rage. "It doesn't matter, you stupid girl. They don't matter to me. Nothing does! They're just the most fun I could have right now! Humans are just as bad as demons, as orcs, as trolls, and even as undead! Everything in this world is disgusting and violent and so unbelievably pathetic that they need to be destroyed, to be slaughtered, to be taught a _fucking_ lesson! We war, we kill, we rape but we're no fucking different from any other race that's come over this world, which means that we have just as much right to die as they do! I would like nothing more than to kill everything, and the Scarlet Crusade is allowing me a chance at doing that!"

Kira was no longer smiling, and had recoiled. The look on Demetria's face was nothing like she had ever seen on a human's. No, that wasn't quite right.

She had seen a similar look on Naruto's face when the Kyuubi had taken control of him.

It was not quite hate, because it was so powerful that no living thing on earth could manage it without it being entirely in their nature. This was not a woman, no, it couldn't be. No human was that evil, that sick, that profoundly vile that they could conjure a hate that bordered on that of a force of nature. No human could equal the Kyuubi, which seemed to hate everything so much that it used its prodigious powers to do exactly what Demetria wanted to do—destroy everything in its path.

She couldn't be human.

Demetria roared in fury, making a single, very brief hand sign, and then gripped the sides of her head so forcefully it looked like she was trying to crush her skull. But then something happened.

'_Shadow Name: Demetria'_

Beneath Demetria's feet a huge puddle of shadow emerged, rapidly growing around her, stretching creepers and claws and growling, snapping heads that looked like dogs, but could have been dragons. They rose up around her like a hedge of shadow, coiling around her body, but never touching her, and branching out into the room. It seemed to grow smaller, darker and colder with each second. Demetria was not smiling now, but had a look of grim determination on her face.

"I'll kill you first, princess. I don't really need you anyways. No matter how delicious you are, I'd like you dead far more."

She took a step forwards, but a monstrous boom halted her. It came from beyond the room, very distant, but it made the room shake slightly. She looked towards it, frowning.

"So they have come?" she said. "Ah! Then perhaps…" she grinned. "He's come, too."

Kira knit her brows in confusion at the woman's words. But she felt a sudden chill enter the room. It ran up her spine and danced along her shoulders, and though she couldn't see or hear anything, she knew something was wrong, and that something had just entered the building.

The only thing that could possibly enter, too, was what was all around them.

Demetria laughed. "I wonder what will happen. His Holiness has been waiting to meet him, I hope they get a chance to. They are perfect for each other, I should think."

* * *

Hisari felt weak, drained of every bit of her _chakra_ and feeling unbearably, frustratingly vulnerable. She could barely lift her sword, and even minutes into the fight, she found herself unable to even injure the Dreadlord that stood before her, towering almost half the height of the room, covering it in a shadow and filling it with the buzzing of a thousand invisible insects. The creature looked almost exactly like Lord Varimathras—Sylvanas' henchman from the Undercity—whom Hisari despised as much as the next blood elf, who all found demons to be loathsome creatures. It had great black wings, a pair of long, pointed horns and extremely pale skin. In fact, the resemblance was so shocking that Hisari was sure that they were related.

The moment it had revealed itself from the corpse, she had attacked, prepared to finish what she had started.

But she could not.

No matter how many times she struck it—first removing its arm, then cutting it across the stomach, through the thick, black armor it wore, and then across the thigh, nearly severing that too. After all of this, the creature had not done anything but laugh.

Laugh! At her! How dare it? How dare it have the gall to laugh at her? She had watched as the wounds she had dealt it healed, and the arm she had removed regenerate. The creature had continued to laugh—great, violent booms that shook the ground—before deciding to show her how much of an idiot she was to have not run in fear.

Hisari had never been hit so hard in her life.

Now, still recovering from the attack, she stood against a mostly ruined portion of the curved wall of the chamber. The Dreadlord was staring at her, its crimson eyes—so beady that they seemed almost invisible on its massive bulk—shined like rubies in the dull light. It didn't speak to her, and instead stretched its wings out to their fullest length, as if trying to impress upon her the foolishness of her situation. The buzzing grew louder when it did this, and she could almost seem them—the tiny, almost invisible insects that flew around the beast at all times, forming its _corruption swarm_, an ability that all Dreadlords possessed in some form or another. The insects, when utilized properly, devoured a person's mind and made them the Dreadlord's slave. This one did not seem to be interested in using it so far, but even if he did, Hisari didn't care. She would kill this creature, no matter what!

She could feel it running through her veins, like liquid fire, and it made her want to grin, want to employ ever facet of it. She wanted to make it flow from every _tenketsu_ in her body, to surround herself in it so that she became stronger and faster, infinitely more powerful than this disgusting beast of the Twisting Nether. She wanted to show it the consequences of laughing at her.

But, at the same time, she restrained herself.

_Geez, that's all that separates you from them, huh?_

She bit her lip and growled in frustration. She looked up at the Dreadlord, wanting to rip it apart, but knowing that it would be foolish to lose herself in her power. She would not be stupid—this thing was strong, so she needed all of her wits about her in order to defeat it. She then remembered Myrdraxxis, glancing up at the hole in the ceiling where he had been. He wasn't there.

But she didn't care, she didn't need him anyways. She could stop this thing herself. She raised her hands, making one of them into a seal, and using the other to heft her sword onto her shoulder.

'_Pure-Edged Steel'_

Her sword began to glow—not all of it, just the very edge, gleaming with a sudden, intensely bright golden light. It seemed to become lighter in her grip, but at the same time her legs seemed to become heavier, and she didn't know why. She had barely used any of her attacks, and had only been hit once—how was she so weak?

Nevertheless, she pressed forwards. Smiling grimly, she hurtled herself at the Dreadlord's cloven legs, lifting her sword up and grasping it with the other hand. The Dreadlord swung a clawed hand at her but she dodged, leaping to the side, breathing heavily and feeling weaker with each step. But she didn't stop, so the Dreadlord lifted both of its wings and began to beat them furiously.

It was as if a windstorm had suddenly kicked up; hot, incredibly strong wind beat at the elf, who would have toppled back had she not affixed herself to the floor with her _chakra_, baring her teeth and roaring loudly into the wind.

She lifted her blade and threw it, making it spiral across the room, through the windstorm as if it had met no resistance. It buried itself in the Dreadlord's chest with a wet, hollow sound making the demon stumble back, lowering its wings and grunting in something like pain. The storm immediately ceased, but Hisari could no longer move.

"_**You'll find," **_the demon told her, "_**that this battle is at an end."**_

She bared her teeth at it again. "Oh?" she said, panting.

"_**It is difficult to battle me for long. My presence drains the life of others, you see. We feed on other's life force and chakra."**_

She didn't want to believe it. "This fight has only just begun," she said, still breathless. "Wait and see, demon."

"_**You are not even human," **_the creature said. "_**Have some sense. I have no wish to kill you because you could be very useful to me. The Scarlet Crusade is far from dead."**_ It took a step towards her, and she matched it, glaring. But now that the demon mentioned it, she could feel it. Her strength slowly ebbing away, trickling like water from a leaking tank. And the creature seemed to grow larger, more powerful with each quavering step she took towards it. The Dreadlord looked down at her, pitilessly, but did not move. It was waiting for her to move or die.

It enraged her. He wasn't going to even kill her! He was going to let her die or humiliate herself! She'd do no such thing! She felt her veins ignite and her body become as light as air, and she felt the _power_ begin to pour from her body, erupting from each of her one-hundred twenty eight _tenketsu _and expanding in an aura around her. She didn't need _chakra_! All she needed was this! It was hers, and gave her more strength than this bastard could even hope to take!

The Dreadlord moved, swinging at her one of its cloven feet connected to tree trunk legs, but Hisari was able to move easily out of the way, and make a hand sign. The green light that had coalesced around her turned gold and spread out around her in a flash of light and the sound of cracking stone.

'_Consecration.'_

The Dreadlord finally backed away, its tiny eyes growing even smaller as the very ground beneath it began to burn its feet, glowing with a holy light. Golden flames licked his shins and rose up higher, towards his thighs and upper body, but the pain wasn't even close to unbearable. But the little gnat was already attacking again. She had picked up her weapon and now flew at the demon with a powerful scream, slashing her blade across its legs, severing them both.

The demon roared and toppled onto its knees, making fire erupt all around it and bringing it face to face with the wrathful elf. She was grinning and had her sword raised to deliver a final blow to sever the demon's head in two. She seemed to hesitate, as if giving it a chance to beg for its life, or to stop the fight, just as it had given her.

But the Dreadlord just stared at her, its beady eyes growing smaller and its face colder.

It did not like being mocked.

Then the air became unbearably cold, and beneath the demon, a black pool had formed. It ate the glowing light and dowsed the flames, and grew ever larger until it had covered almost half the room, and Hisari was standing not on floor but knee-deep in a black, murky swamp. Clawed hands began to emerge from it, grabbing at her feet and thighs, while the black water itself began to burn her skin and constrict around her, pulling her deeper into the pit.

She growled and looked up. The Dreadlord was standing again, his legs already healed.

"_**Pathetic,"**_ it said. It stood atop the black pool, and though its facial expression remained stony, Hisari took its words as a sneer. She grew more furious, and began to struggle, but the pool pulled her down faster, constricting over her arms and breasts and stretching towards her face. The claws came out reaching for her, trying to pull her under.

She wanted to scream, but couldn't.

She was too angry.

Then the black stuff stopped trying to pull her in, and she heard a roar of pain from above her. The demon had fallen forwards, struck by Myrdraxxis' first attack, from right above it. His blades—_Tuska _and _Poena_---crackling with purple lightning, carved straight through the Dreadlord's shoulders and down the length of its back, severing the armor it wore and making purplish blood spew.

The Dreadlord gave its first fully agonized roar as the Forsaken ripped his blades out and then began slashing at one of its legs. The cuts were quick and silent and clean, and he severed the demon's leg for a second time in only two blows. It toppled to the side, thrashing, while he moved quickly away and prepared another attack.

Hisari began thrashing too, pulling herself from the shadowy pool as it began to disappear around her. She pulled herself up and out just as it vanished, still covered in some of the sticky blackness. Myrdraxxis moved towards her, and was very quickly by her side.

"Forgive me," he said. "I was late."

"_It is fine,"_ she said. She could still feel the power surging within her, but her mind felt clearer now. For some reason, she was glad the Forsaken was here. "_It is not dead."_

"That is obvious," Myrdraxxis said.

The demon was standing once more, perfectly intact.

"_How does one kill it?"_

"One cannot." Myrdraxxis began slowly moving to the side, as if making to circle the beast. "This is no ordinary demon. It is Balnazzar."

"_That means nothing to me," _she said. The demon suddenly moved to attack, opening its mouth and roaring out a stream of purple flames that made them scatter. Hisari ran along the left and Myrdraxxis the right, and the Dreadlord moved to the right, deeming Myrdraxxis more dangerous. The rogue did not attack, and instead retreated, allowing Hisari to leap up and drive her sword under the Dreadlord's arm.

It did not kill the beast, but it did exactly as she had intended. It struck an artery, and she was drenched in a geyser of demonic blood, before being thrown clear across the room from the demon's suddenly flailing. Myrdraxxis, seeing his chance, leapt up and aimed for the Dreadlord's head. His blades crackled, raised high above his head pointed down.

"_**Enough!"**_

The Dreadlord extended one wing, deflected Myrdraxxis' attack, and then smashed him across the room with one hand. He landed roughly against the wall, feeling little pain but experiencing a jarring disorientation that rendered him unable to move while the Dreadlord turned towards him.

"_**I have no use for Forsaken,"**_ It told him. "_**Sylvanas did me a great offense in the past. I will not soon forget that she as good as killed me and put me in that disgusting body." **_Balnazzar raised its palm, surrounding it in evil purple _chakra. _It fired from it a series of glowing lances, which impaled Myrdraxxis and drove him back against the wall, pinning him to it.

Now the rogue felt pain, pain that he hadn't felt since he was alive. It was like he was dying all over again.

He screamed.

Hisari was running towards him, but the Dreadlord swept her out of the way with one of its wings, throwing her again against the wall. She was left unable to move this time, slumping to the floor amidst the rubble from her collision. She stared desperately at the scene as Myrdraxxis thrashed, and Balnazzar advanced towards him, until it towered over the pinned rogue. She could see it happening, and yet she could do nothing, and for some reason, she didn't want to watch what was going to happen.

She didn't want to watch Myrdraxxis die.

"_**Your mistress will join you soon," **_Balnazzar said, raising a glowing claw. "_**Expect her to be in pieces, like she left me. I shall send my coward of a brother with her, as well."**_

Hisari slammed her eyes shut and waited for the brutal, wet tearing of Myrdraxxis' rotten flesh and his final grunt. All she could think was that she didn't want him to die. She didn't know why, she'd seen hundreds die. It would be nothing, but she couldn't watch or even dare to picture his final moments, which oddly came in the sound of a banging door and a roar of anger.

Her eyes darted open for a moment.

Two figures streaked into the room. Naruto went for Balnazzar, straight for its face with a blade glowing with wind _chakra_, while Tsuwabuki moved slightly to the side and went for Balnazzar's prey, Myrdraxxis. They reached their targets at the same time, and Balnazzar redirected his attention immediately, swatting at Naruto with its claw. All he destroyed were a few _Kage Bunshin_ that Naruto had summoned barely a second before, while he had dashed beneath the demon, holding out one hand.

'_Rasengan'_

He leapt up, slamming the spiraling sphere between Balnazzar's gigantic legs. In a white flash of light the attack bored its way through Balnazzar's flesh, flinging waves of deadly _chakra_ through its body, and blasted the demon off its feet. It crashed on top of its golden throne; its back snapped against the armholders and its body shook furiously from the _chakra_ of the _Rasengan_; and probably more pain than it had ever experienced in its nigh endless life.

Tsuwabuki had removed Myrdraxxis from the wall, and had laid him nearer to the golden doors. Still shaking from his attack, Naruto turned and shouted to the Forsaken.

"Are you okay?"

The rogue didn't respond, clutching his chest, which was gushing green ichor even as he spoke. Naruto gulped in horror at the damage, not knowing what to do. He didn't have anything to heal him. How could he—

A sound drew him back to the throne. Balnazzar was standing, and something had changed in his demeanor. There was fury written on his pale face and in his tiny eyes, which glowed like stubborn coals in a dead fire. He stared at Naruto, gnashing his teeth and uttering a low growl.

"_**To think," **_it said. "_**One of 'them' could possibly be here. I had only heard stories of your kind until now. I wasn't sure that I'd get to face one in battle."**_

Hisari watched the boy as he turned back towards Balnazzar, frowning. "Got the wrong guy," he said. He then looked at Hisari, and his eyes lit up. "Elf! You have to help Myrdraxxis, he's hurt pretty bad!"

Balnazzar stood. "_**Wrong. She is to become my slave. You too, apparently."**_

Naruto grit his teeth. "No way! I'm the only one I get to obey! I'm nobody's slave."

"_**My blood will make you say differently," **_he looked back at her, and grinned. "_**She has already been drenched in it. She should find herself weakening already. Her body will not be able to resist it now."**_

Hisari struggled to stand, but felt herself unable to. Her body was shaking uncontrollably, and she couldn't get herself into even a sitting position. Something hot was boiling inside her stomach, slowly spreading to other parts of her body. The shaking grew worse and she looked up, staring at Naruto with something in her face and eyes that made the boy's own widen in surprise. Then he cursed, and growled at the Dreadlord.

"She's fine."

Hisari nearly fell. What was he talking about?

"She's a big girl. She's strong enough to defeat whatever you can throw at her. She's not a weakling, you know. She's just a bit headstrong, like me." He glanced down at Tsuwabuki, who now stood by his side. "Oi, fox, think you can help me with something? I'm going to need some of your _chakra _to do this. I spent a lot against that muscle-headed guy."

'_Fine,'_ the fox told him. '_If only because I'm happy to see you. Don't expect any more favors.'_

Naruto shrugged, and bit his lip. He reached up and smeared some of the blood on his thumb, and then made a few hand signs. Tsuwabuki lowered herself into a crouched position, growling.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu!'_

With the massive cloud of white smoke, which obscured Naruto, Tsuwabuki and Balnazzar and the side of the room they occupied, the temperature of the room dropped. It became so cold that frost formed on Hisari's lips and froze the sweat on her brow. But it seemed to cool the fire in her veins as well, enough for her to pull herself to her knees, just as the skeletal head of a dragon emerged from the smoke, level with the tops Balnazzar's horns.

"_**SO," **_the voice chilled the room even more, and now Hisari was shaking because of the cold, not the pain from her body or the infection from the demon's blood. "_**WHAT HAVE YOU BROUGHT TO APPEASE ME THIS TIME, BRAT?"**_

Naruto's voice came from the white smoke still obscuring the dragon's body, loud and clear; somehow enough to warm and calm Hisari enough to stand.

"Just a big dumb demon to eat, if you want."

Balnazzar stared up at the frost wyrm, clearly surprised but furious at the boy's new obstacle. The skeletal dragon, Boreagos, gazed down at the Dreadlord, the two glowing crystals inside its eye sockets growing brighter as it issued a deep, frigid laugh that blew cold smoke into Balnazzar's face.

"_**NATHREZIM? YOU SHOULD BE DEAD. IT SEEMS THAT YOUR BROTHER DID NOT DO HIS JOB WELL, DID HE?"**_

The Dreadlord spread its wings. "_**He never did, that Varimathras."**_

* * *

Sai opened his sketchbook, and flipped to the middle pages where the binding stitches showed through the paper; a large, heavily inked picture stretched across both pages, so heavy that it was difficult to make out. But Sai knew it well, and even took a moment to gaze fondly at it, his eyes flitting over every thick outline among the hundreds of figures that had been painted into the picture against a dark background—a forest—so opaquely inked it should have soaked through to the pages beyond. Sai smiled at the picture one last time, before holding it up and speaking to Fordragon. The Scarlet Crusader was in no hurry to fight and just stood there, watching Sai.

"I'm glad you waited so patiently," said Sai. "I do not usually make a habit of doing this, but I feel that I must."

"I have all the time I need," Fordragon said. "But you are no less odd, shinobi. I thought you were a true one for a moment, but it seems that I was wrong."

"Naruto-kun is likely responsible," said Sai. "He has affected me a lot, though I didn't realize it until now. I guess I value his friendship more than I ever thought I would. I also wonder what you mean by 'true' shinobi. Have you met one?"

"Many."

"How odd." Sai looked down at his sketchbook for a moment. "Where?"

"Why ask, when my answer does not matter?"

"You seemed willing to talk beforehand," said Sai. "I also must gather up the necessary _chakra_ to use this _jutsu_, and I don't believe that you will remain passive for very much longer."

Fordragon grunted. "I am no shinobi, boy. I have some honor."

"That is odd," said Sai. "I didn't think Scarlet Crusaders would believe in such things, seeing as how they are so driven to destroy. They are more like wild animals, but you are very different."

"I am not tainted as they are," he said.

"Oh," Sai retorted, feeling that his _chakra _was almost ready. "But it is really rather foolish of you to not attack me. You have no idea what attack this is do you?"

"It is nothing," Fordragon said. "That I or my men will not be able to handle."

The sounds of footsteps rapidly getting louder filled the room. A few seconds later the doors burst open and hundred Scarlet Crusaders rushed in, all dressed in full armor and wielding weapons of all sorts. Some were grinning, and some looked afraid. None of them, however, were looking at Sai.

"They have arrived, then?" Fordragon said.

"They broke through!" said one, looking desperate.

"They are tainting this place with their unholy filth, milord!" Another roared, gleefully. "We must tear them to bits and show their master our strength and their weakness! We must purify this place once again, bathed in their blood!"

"We shall," Fordragon said. He had not once taken his eyes off Sai. "But there is the problem of this one, before that. Who among you believes that you can defeat this one without killing him? Who among you has that strength?"

Some stared at their lord as if he were insane, while others looked eager to try and please him. Nevertheless, a hundred Crusaders soon converged around Sai like hungry wolves, brandishing their weapons and pressing ever closer. Sai stood still, smiling pleasantly at Fordragon.

"Have you enough _chakra_, boy?"

Sai nodded, and held up his sketchbook. The black ink was dripping from the page, and had already formed a pool at his feet.

Fordragon lifted his sword. "Do not kill him."

"You are really loyal," Sai said.

"Not by choice." Fordragon leapt at Sai, lifting his sword and bringing it crashing down, both in a second, with such force that it tore straight through Sai's body and blew the stone floor apart in a tremendous flash of golden light. Sai's body was ripped with sickening sounds into a dozen pieces, and each was flung into the air, spewing black blood all over Fordragon. Sai's head, separated in two, still smiled even as they hit the ground—

And dissolved into puddles of black.

Fordragon stood, surprised by the boy's speed with the replacement—he hadn't even seen it. Yet, it soon became clear that it was not the trick he had expected—the puddles of black grew larger, expanding until they converged into a pool of ink, which sloshed against the boots of the Scarlet Crusaders, who stumbled and glared and swore at what was happening. The world seemed to be getting brighter.

Fordragon looked up, and saw the ceiling and walls fade away into a blank white sheet, not unlike the pages of Sai's sketchbook. By contrast the ground was still an inky black.

Then, something happened.

Inky black sketches began to appear on the white background, forming trees that towered high into the air with patches of bush clumped around them; they looked as if they had been painted by a painter who didn't particularly like painting. Everything was painted in a hasty fury, until the world became pointed and half-formed like a darkened sketch. They were in a forest, which loomed immense around them, made of black and white and all shades of grey. It all moved, as well. The forest seemed alive—the trees shook as if caught in an invisible breeze, and the bushes shifted and shook as tiny animals—rabbits that looked like little more than circles with long ears, and squirrels with comically curled tails and large teeth, scurried out and up trees and did what they did in reality.

Fordragon watched all of this, amazed at the boy's conception of reality. It was amazing, and yet he felt he knew this place and knew it well. The feeling grew stronger as the inky black ground, now solid, began to grow upwards. Arms flailed into the air and heads emerged from nothing but shadow, rising up among the Crusaders, who quickly began to panic. One of them cut down a half-formed figure, which plunged back into the depths, but quickly rose again.

Fordragon did nothing, standing in the middle of a group of figures, which soon became whole.

He suddenly found himself surrounded by eyes. Blank, completely white eyes that showed straight through the solid black outlines of the hunched and clawed and shambling figures that he knew quite well.

Fordragon would have laughed if he hadn't been forced to attack. They came at him all at once, slashing with huge black claws that felt as real as in the Plaguelands that he had wandered for half his life, first to guide the actions of a young priestess, and then to destroy every living thing—whether Scourge or human—that crossed his path. They tore at his armor as he slashed and cut and beat them back with everything he had. He unleashed every technique he knew, hammering the dark masses into the ground, from which they rose again and again to renew their attacks.

He heard the screams of his dying men. They were being slaughtered like the animals they were. He could care less. They deserved to die like dogs, just as he did.

The painted Scourge tore away all of his armor, and then began on his flesh. They gnawed and slashed at his thick skin and his iron-hard muscles, tearing off great chunks and drenching the black ground in red blood. But Fordragon didn't stop, didn't even break the swing in his sword, no matter how much he was damaged. He cut down every Scourge that bit him, but it always got up again.

He could feel his death coming towards him like a flood, ready to sweep him off his feet and drown him in darkness. He ran to meet it, ran to it with his sword swinging, never stopping. He ran like the warrior he was, towards the shinobi brat who would be the one to succeed where so many had failed to destroy him.

Just a child, too.

The last piece of armor to be torn from his body was his helmet. It was ripped from his head, revealing a face, hardened by years of war and slaughter; a face so scarred that he had been forced to wear a helmet until his very death to hide it.

But of course, he wasn't hiding his face; he needed something to stop them from seeing it.

The despair at what he had become. What she had made him into.

And he laughed then, free of the despair, because he was dead and he'd be going to that dark place before her. He'd get some peace and quiet, if only for a while. She wouldn't die so soon, after all. She was his mistress, and even as he died, he couldn't deny that.

Then it was over. They tore at his face until there was no flesh left, until it was nothing but bone covered in a sticky, bloody sheen with clear fluid oozing from the sockets and the nose cavity. The Scourge tore at his body until there was nothing, ripping the great Crusader, and before that, the great Highlord and Regent of Stormwind, Bolvar Fordragon, to bloody pieces and dragging the stripped bones back into the inky darkness.

Sai closed the sketchbook with a snap. The room was empty, and seemed almost lonely. There was no evidence of a slaughter, nothing at all. He did frown, however, when a bit of red dripped from the edge of the page onto the clean white floor. He wiped the smudge from the book and replaced it in his weapons pouch.

And then he collapsed to his knees, unable to move any longer, his _chakra _nearly gone.

"How did you like it?" he whispered, knowing well there was nobody there.

"My best picture yet."

He felt the ground shake beneath him, and a distant sound fill his ears. It was unnatural, loud, a torrent of violent screams, moans and snarls, coming slowly towards him. The sounds behind him too, from beyond the golden door grew louder and more ferocious. He laughed a little, and wondered if he was going to die, just after he had made his first friend in a long time.

* * *

"It was about time," said Demetria, stroking one of the black tendrils that flowed from beneath her feet, now close to filling the room. They had driven Sakura, Kira and Kylia to the very back of the room, until they could no longer run. The shadows surrounded them on all sides, drawing slowly closer, but not launching their attack. Demetria had changed tunes upon hearing the crashing sound, now a steady but still distant rumble of hundreds of feet hitting the carpeted floor of the Bastion. "After all, no fortress can stand forever."

Kira could feel it. A chill had crept into her bones, rising slowly up her spine, a chill that she had never felt before. But Benedictus had described it to her, once. You won't feel their anger, their hatred for life, he had told her. You'll feel an chill instead—the chill of their frozen hearts and their absent souls, and no matter where you stand—against a fire or in the burning sun, the chill will persist until they have gone away. Those hypersensitive to it, those with weak hearts and minds, have been defeated before they even see their enemies.

They had come, then, she realized. The situation couldn't be worse. She had no idea what type of power this was, but she had already tried several _jutsu_ to banish the dark tendrils, but none had been effective. They multiplied like hydra heads, and with each one destroyed another two burst into being. Their touch was corrosive, like acid and Kylia had found that out the hard way. They would die before they could get within five feet of Demetria.

Kira was looking at Sakura, who stood in front of her and Kylia. The girl was shaking from head to toe, and her breathing was labored and she looked ready to collapse, and Kira couldn't understand why. She bore few wounds, none of which were able to harm her, and the stamina that Kira had given her should have been able to keep her up and running for much longer.

"Sakura?" she whispered.

The girl didn't respond, and only breathed faster. She gave a violent spasm.

"You got it in you, didn't you?"

Demetria was smiling malevolently. She had noticed Sakura too, and clapped her hands in childish delight to see it. "Didn't get out of the way fast enough, hmm? The blood taints your veins, doesn't it? It wasn't much, but you should be open to more suggestions now. Your blood should be soon on fire, shouldn't it? His Holiness's blood is very special, you see. He is a demon, a very powerful one, and his blood taints and corrupts like all demons' do. That's how most of our finest Crusaders were made—they went from innocent little puppies to mad dogs with only a few drops! You won't be as bad, but you'll certainly change your tune by the end of this fight, dear girl."

Sakura didn't seem to be listening. She stared forwards and simply shook, her breathing becoming more rapid. Kira rushed up to her, placing her hands against Sakura's back. She prepared to release more healing _chakra_ into her skin, to flush out the evil blood, but then Sakura whispered something.

Kira stepped back, a little stunned, and before she could say or do anything otherwise, Sakura bolted forwards, straight into the forest of grasping tendrils.

Demetria burst into laughter, unable to believe the girl's stupidity. She was laughing so hard that she did not notice that Sakura wasn't screaming, nor had she stopped running. Her stride did not break all the way to Demetria, her opened her eyes in time to have Sakura's fist strike her solidly in the stomach, unleashing a frightening amount of power into her. Demetria was thrown across the room and through the wall, bursting out into the room beyond, a small cell that had likely been for a Crusader to sleep in. She even flew across that room and slammed into the stony wall, cracking it, her whole body shaking in agony. There was blood all over her mouth and face and her body hung limply, wedged inside the crater in the wall.

Only her eyes remained unchanged. She stood up and took one step forwards, with primal hatred in her eyes.

Sakura dropped to the floor, unable to move. Kira ran past her, straight towards the room. The last few moments before Sakura had attacked, she had spoken a few words to Kira that had compelled her to act.

'_The blood didn't touch me. Her mind. You have to attack her mind because that's the only thing that she can't protect.'_

She raised her hands and made a seal. Kylia was right beside her, and had withdrawn the blades she always carried inside her skin, and had hurtled them at Demetria. Two struck her shoulders, and another two her thighs. Demetria stopped walking, either from pain or the paralyzing poison that Kylia had soaked into each blade, immune to it herself. Kylia had decided it. This wasn't Demi, her beloved savior. She was a monster; and this monster had _threatened_ her mistress, and any monster that dared to do such a thing must be destroyed. There were no tears in her eyes when she threw the daggers and no fear in her heart.

But Demetria didn't even look at her. She just stared at Kira, with those hateful, hateful eyes.

And Kira, raising her hands, could match them finally without fear. She had no question now that this wasn't her mother. This wasn't even a human being. That simple knowledge cleared her mind, and made her purpose entirely clear. It also exposed the very weakness that Sakura had noticed first. Demetria's emotions changed so much, her mind was so unstable that any single strike to it, in the perfect place, could shatter it utterly and that was what she was going to do. She was going to tear down the ruined wall in Demetria's mind, and destroy it from within.

No fortress could last forever, after all.

'_Mind Blast'_

When the _jutsu _struck Demetria, her head snapped back and her hands were half raised to her head, before falling limp. She uttered a low moan, and then a louder one, and then began to scream. She stumbled back against the wall and began to shake madly, blood frothing at her mouth, her eyes rolling up into her head. She writhed so much that the daggers fell from her body, the sounds of their falling drowned out by Demetria's screams.

The force of Kira's assault had been immense, though unneeded. It had shattered the pitiful natural defenses that shielded her mind and overloaded everything in it. It was like an explosion in her head.

Everything burst in a tremendous flash before her eyes. She couldn't see or think, couldn't breath, and there was so much pain around her. She screamed and roared and thrashed and tried to go back, to get up, but she couldn't. Then the darkness came for her, creeping up behind her and dragging her back, along with all that she had done, to the depths.

She fought the whole way. She screamed and swore and told her that she'd get out again, that'd she'd be free and that there was nothing she could do about it. She would fucking kill everyone, just like they had said they would, like they had always planned to from the moment she had flung them into the back of her pure and shining mind and locked them away. They would get out. They wouldn't go away, they shouted in many different voices—one a woman, arrogant and proud but cowardly in spirit; another a man, ferocious in temper and cruel at heart; both familiar yet distant by dozens of years. They all shouted at her as she stood and walked away from them, leaving them in that small, rotten pile; defeated but never accepting it.

Like spoiled children.

Like they'd been in real life.

Then when she opened her eyes—it was so bright, and so loud—she saw somebody standing before her. She thought it first a mirror and that she was standing in front of it, glaring at herself with pity and disgust as she had so often done in her childhood. But she realized it was somebody else, somebody whom she couldn't identify for a moment, until the eyes came to her. They were like hers, beautiful and purple.

'_Why did you marry me?'_

'_Your eyes. I loved your eyes from the moment I met you.'_

'_Just my eyes?'_

'_Your soul is what I really loved. But your eyes let me see it.'_

It was real this time. Her eyes. Her hair. Her face. Her voice, grace, and poise; even her smell, like roses. It all was she. She knew this young woman.

"Kira? My daughter?"

* * *

Boreagos snapped his head forwards, his mouth open and spewing icy air all over Balnazzar's pale face and in its beady eyes. The Dreadlord lifted a hand and struck the frost wyrm solidly in the jaw, throwing him violently to the side. Naruto and Tsuwabuki stumbled in their positions on top of the dragon's back, but the beast quickly recovered by beating his immense skeletal wings, threaded with a thin veil of frost in place of the leathery skin that most dragons had. The frost wyrm breathed a stream of ice over Balnazzar's face, engulfing it in searing frost that did little to dissuade the demon from bashing the dragon's head a second time. Balnazzar's body buzzed, and soon a black and green haze began to surround it, composed of millions of tiny insects: its _corruption swarm. _

It opened its mouth and breathed a stream of the black bugs at Boreagos, not aiming so much for the dragon, as there was little chance of them affecting him, but more towards the boy on top.

Boreagos snarled a warning. '_**DON'T TOUCH THEM.'**_

Naruto, already thoroughly schooled in Dreadlord anatomy solely from his fight with Varimathras, knew this and simply grunted in response. Tsuwabuki removed the threat with a bellowing blast from her mouth. Naruto was more concerned with the fact that no matter what was done to the demon, nothing seemed to injure it.

"How the hell do we stop him from regenerating?"

Boreagos laughed, a howling sound like the wind in the dead of winter. '_**YOU DESTROY HIM, BRAT. THAT IS WHAT WE SHALL DO. DESTROY HIM UTTERLY. IT IS HOW SYLVANAS DID IT THE FIRST TIME.'**_

"_**And how did it end?"**_ Balnazzar rumbled, as the ice melted from his face, and more of the dark green light began to pulsate around him. "_**She let my brother do the honors, knowing full well that it is against our kind to destroy brethren. She trusted blood against her influence. Pathetic."**_

'_**YES, INDEED. ALMOST AS PATHETIC AS HIDING IN THE BODY OF A HUMAN FOR ALL THOSE YEARS.'**_

The Dreadlord blurred forwards, beating its massive wings to increase its speed, and smashed its claw into Boreagos' skull. The blow once again offset the dragon, and nearly threw Naruto and Tsuwabuki from his back once again, but he recovered and slashed the demon with his great claws, and then rammed his skull into Balnazzar's bleeding front. The Dreadlord flew back and struck the wall, sending cracks right up to the ceiling.

Balnazzar roared in fury, spreading its wings and opening its great mouth, vomiting a collection of purple fireballs that shot across the room and nearly tore it apart. The flames stuck to the ground like oil fire, and clung to Boreagos' wing flaps, which he had used to protect Naruto and Tsuwabuki. Balnazzar laughed and stomped the ground. A black pool much like the one he had used against Hisari appeared, right below Boreagos.

'_**SUCH FEEBLE ATTEMPTS; NO WONDER YOU FAILED TO DESTROY MY MISTRESS.' **_The dragon spread his wings and flew into the air over the swamp, and then shot like a bullet towards Balnazzar. He slammed into the demon, knocking it into the ground and blasting apart the already scarred floor. Naruto and Tsuwabuki leapt off at the last second, as the room shook violently, and it grew worse as the two beasts fought on the ground, clawing and striking each other with wild abandon, though neither did much damage. Balnazzar pushed Boreagos to the ground and drove one of its long, spear-like horns through the dragon's ribcage.

"_**She failed to destroy me! "**_ Balnazzar thundered. "_**Sending one of my own kind to do it? Disgusting!" **_It beat its wings and flew back, breathing more purple fireballs onto the fallen dragon. They exploded, engulfing him in violet fire, but it did little to injure him, for the icy mist that eternally collected around him quickly doused it. The dragon righted himself, laughing coldly, but said nothing.

Naruto was breathing quickly as he watched the fight. He didn't know what he was going to do. They seemed evenly matched so he knew that he and Tsuwabuki would have to step in and make the difference. But how was he going to do that? And what could he possibly do that would destroy this beast? He had no attack to do such a—

Naruto blinked. Maybe he did. He just had to….

Hisari, breathing heavily but still standing, stared first at Naruto and then at the battling monsters. She felt exhausted, and the corrupting fire within her was regaining its intensity, and she knew she wouldn't be able to stand for much longer. But she didn't know what to do, how to fight! She didn't know if she could.

But for some reason, she felt that she had to.

The boy had said something that she had never expected him to say. He had said, quite plainly, with that honest sincerity that somebody like him couldn't fake, that he trusted her. He trusted her to beat the demon's corruption and it was so shocking that she couldn't process it. Why did the boy trust her? How could he? After he had left her before? She had refused to give up on her addiction, and yet he still trusted her when they had barely spoken a word since. Had he just been saying it?

No. That couldn't be possible. If it was one thing she had learned about him it was that he didn't lie, and probably couldn't. He had such an open personality that she couldn't help but feel that his words had been true and she couldn't understand _why!_

She was on her last legs. The Sunwell's power could probably heal her, probably rid her of the corruption, but she wouldn't be able to control it once she did. She might even run out of _chakra_, and then she'd probably die of _mana_ poisoning. But no matter how she looked at it she couldn't help but feel that she had to do it.

She had to fight.

She felt the power flowing within her. She felt the strength it _could _offer her, the rush, the feeling of superiority. But this time she didn't take it. Instead she looked down on it. She towered over it. She didn't need _it_ to feel superior.

She already was.

She was stronger than it. It could offer her nothing that she did not already have, and so when she seized it this time, the rush became different. It did not consume her, did not fill her with the absolute possibility that she would win; it filled her with the knowledge that she had the ability to win, that she _could_ win if she fought this battle with everything she had. The rush heightened her senses, but she felt on top of it, she felt as if she were on the bank of a river, staring down into the green rushing stream, and laughing at everything that was swept away by it. Her fears and her doubts and the fiery feeling in her body brought on by the demon's corrupted blood: all washed away down the torrential flood.

She was above it.

She _ruled _it.

The next time the Dreadlord stood up, its body reforming from a vicious blow from Boreagos, it was immediately thrown to the ground again, blasted by a flash of light summoned from above.

'_Hammer of Justice'_

The mass of dense _chakra_ slammed the demon straight into the floor, pressing it deep into the stone. Balnazzar tried to get up, but again it was struck and pushed farther in. Again and again the _jutsu_ slammed Balnazzar into the ground, and each time Hisari walked closer, dragging her sword behind her. She walked straight up to the fallen demon, which could not move from the crater it now lay in.

"_I rule you," _she said aloud. The demon didn't move or answer at her words, and she raised her blade for the last time. It pulsed with greenish light, and hummed as she brought it slicing down, atop the fallen beast.

The marble floor shattered, and the entire room was engulfed in a plume of smoke and a shower of stone, and a crash that shook the entire bastion echoed throughout the ruined chamber. Cracks appeared in the walls and ceiling, traveling up to the small hole that Hisari had created in her entrance, making the ceiling unstable. Balnazzar disappeared in the cloud of smoke and rock and the bright flash from Hisari's sword.

But Hisari did not wait around to care. She had not stopped moving straight across the room, in a slow run, to Myrdraxxis. Upon reaching him, she pressed her glowing hands against his wounds.

Naruto watched, entranced. He was partly amazed at the attack, but more so at Hisari's change. Had that been because of what he'd said?

Maybe, he thought. But she would've figured it out anyways. She wasn't stupid, after all.

Hisari finished her healing, and the Forsaken simply stared at her. His yellow glowing eyes were dim from fatigue, but they were no less piercing. Some of the skin on his cheek stretched out a little, and it seemed as if he could be smiling; but he didn't say anything before the yellow glow faded and he slumped forwards. She couldn't tell if he was alive or dead, but for some reason she knew he wasn't.

And she was glad for it.

Naruto's eyes then went to the smoldering hole where Balnazzar had been. Nothing had arisen yet, but Naruto could still feel that slight shiver of dread down his spine, and the demon in his stomach had not yet quieted. Boreagos seemed to agree, and was slowly approaching the crater, preparing his frosty breath to finish the job.

Then the room shook, and the crater exploded.

It happened with brutal speed that nobody was prepared for. Balnazzar rose from the pit and slammed Boreagos into the ground, and began to pulverize the frost wyrm's skull with a succession of brutal blows. Naruto cried out, watching as the dragon's skull was reduced to nothing but shards of white bone, and his body began to shake and then fall into a pile of ordinary bones. All of this then vanished in a white puff of smoke, even as Balnazzar tore across the room, not at Hisari but at Naruto. Naruto raised his hands and made a few clones. He held out one hand and began to gather _chakra_ into it, forming it into a swirling ball, while his clones stabilized it. He then began to reform the _chakra_, making it lighter, faster, _sharper_.

But even as he did this he felt something was wrong, and before he even realized that the _chakra_ was not shaping into the _jutsu_, Balnazzar had reached him. The demon bore down on him, swatting away his clones and grabbing Naruto by the mid-section.

He squeezed so hard that Naruto felt his ribs break. He cried out, fighting viciously to get free, but Balnazzar had already released him—hurtling him across the room into the already shaky wall.

Hisari got up and ran towards him. She could feel the power still pulsing in her, along now with desperation. But Balnazzar turned and loosed a stream of his _corruption swarm _at her, engulfing her in a black cloud, and then launched itself towards Naruto again. Tsuwabuki leapt up as he passed, and dug her claws into its back, unleashing a wave of sound _chakra_ directly between its wings.

Balnazzar lurched forwards as a hole the size of a basketball was blown straight through its body. But it didn't stop. It roared and flung Tsuwabuki away with a quick flip of its small tail, and then punched her in mid-air.

Naruto struggled to get up. Balnazzar reached him, roaring madly.

"_**Sad! SAD THAT A CREATURE OF YOUR POWER MUST RELY ON OTHERS!"**_

Naruto couldn't attack. He was slammed into the wall by Balnazzar, so hard that he couldn't breath and his vision burst into spots. He stared at the demon as it leaned forwards, staring straight into his wide blue eyes with its small red ones. It began to squeeze so hard that Naruto couldn't stay up. His body went limp and his vision began to fade; he could only feel the hot breath—sulfur and burning flesh—and see a hazy outline of an amused expression that could not be deemed a smile; with all its hideously deformed teeth and the unnaturally long stretch of the pale face that made it.

"_**But how lucky I am," **_it said. "_**To be able to tame a creature like you."**_

Naruto then felt a hatred boil inside him. It rose from his stomach with such ferocity that he thought he might vomit. It burned his throat and sent shivers of life down his limbs and up to his head. Suddenly his vision was clear and he no longer felt pain. But hell chose that precise moment to break loose.

The room shook. A portion of the wall directly to Naruto's left exploded, and a monstrous figure barreled into the room straight towards Balnazzar.

'_**ROSENROT, OH ROSENROT!'**_

The first thing Ramstein the Gorger did when it entered the room was smash the huge carving knife it carried into Balnazzar's chest. The blow cut straight through, nearly taking off the top half of Balnazzar's torso. The demon twisted to face the threat even as the abomination rammed into it full-run and then threw it to the ground, spraying the ground with black demonic blood and greenish drippings from Ramstein's gaping chest.

Balnazzar twisted, and got to its feet. Its grin had grown even more twisted. "_**If you are here, then he must be as well! Hah! It is finally come! The final battle!"**_

Ramstein did not seem to care, and now its eyes (which were different colors than Naruto remembered) had found Naruto and it seemed to be remembering just what he had done to it. Its mouth stretched into a cavernous grin from which blood and greenish ooze began to spill. It turned properly to face him, and its body began to crackle with electricity.

"_**Ohne Dich…"**_ It muttered, almost tenderly, as it raised the carving knife and its third arm began to spin the hook and chain. "_**Kann ich nicht sein…."**_

Naruto leapt to the side as the knife tore into the wall where he had been standing. The lightning chain came a second later, whipping into the ground where he stood and shredding it apart, pelting Naruto with dust and stone as he backpedaled to avoid it. He felt oddly limber and awake, despite his near death experience. The fire in his stomach had settled once again, but he could still feel touches of it in his arms and legs, strengthening him. He didn't know how it was happening, but at the moment he was grateful—Ramstein pressed forwards, moving with the same surprising speed it had before, all three of its arms flailing their weapons, in by no means an expert fashion, but well enough that it kept Naruto backing up, searching desperately for a way to get out.

Balnazzar was not attacking any longer. It seemed excited, eager to meet the one that it had mentioned. It was muttering something but Naruto was neither able to hear nor given a chance to—Ramstein pressed Naruto all the way across the room, towards the wall. To avoid getting trapped against it, Naruto summoned a group of clones and sent them to their quick demise at Ramstein, as he kicked the ground and sped up.

'_Kazaashi'_

He moved immediately behind the demon, so fast that his vision tunneled for a moment, everything blurring but what he stared at. The abomination spun, blinking its big, different colored eyes and saw a handful of Narutos rushing towards the far end of the room. It lumbered after them, smacking its lips greedily, its tiny mind and vicious nature combining to form the idea that if there were more little pink things then it would get more satisfaction out of killing and eating them, and thus more revenge, than if there were only one. It sped up with this thought, heading straight for the first Naruto that it saw.

The one standing in front of the giant pale demon, who turned just as Ramstein came up with the force of a speeding locomotive. It was far too late.

The cleaver and sickle came down again, tearing into Balnazzar's white flesh, splitting his torso into four pieces. The demon roared, but before its dismembered body fell, the blood falling with it sprang together, connected the four pieces and made it whole again. Balnazzar reached up and grabbed Ramstein's head, tearing it off with a violent roar—more of annoyance than pain. But the abomination didn't fall, and continued its assault. It cut Balnazzar in two, until that arm was torn off as well, Balnazzar's claws and monstrous strength more than enough to pull through eight layers of leathery flesh. But still Ramstein attacked. Its head bit Balnazzar's hand, and its remaining arms hacked at the demon's body, slicing off entire limbs which grew back almost instantly, as Balnazzar systematically removed any way for the abomination to attack, which soon removed its ability to move, and finally, seeing that even its individual pieces were doing their best to dismember Balnazzar, the demon spewed flames all over the fat, gushing torso and stomped on it, popping the organs like rotten fruit; soon the abomination's limbs stopped moving, and its head finally dropped from Balnazzar's mutilated claw, whispering its final words—

'_**SCHONSTE STADT…'**_

Balnazzar growled and spread his wings, looking around the chamber, which stood on its last legs. He did not see the boy or the elf, nor even the silver fox. All of them had vanished, though their Forsaken friend remained lying in the corner, unconscious. What plan did they have next, he wondered? What would they possibly do to continue this battle? He couldn't be bothered with them any longer, not when he was about to arrive. Not when his greatest enemy would was coming to its doorstep! He no longer cared of spreading the Scarlet Crusade to foreign lands—he had a thousand years to do that—not when such a rare opportunity presented itself! Not when he could tip the tides of the everlasting war, and bring this city to its heels before him! Past and present would bow, when he destroyed the one who governed it!

He could feel it, the shivering cold! He was coming!

* * *

"Kira?"

The words were different from before. They were smoother, softer, more delicate; they were said with grace and a gentleness that Demetria was not capable of producing. No matter how good she was at shifting her own emotions from one extreme to the next, she could never match the pure emotions that flowed into that single word. Kira found herself not staring at Lady Demetria the Scarlet Oracle; it was an entirely different woman that stood before her, wearing Demetria's wounded skin, covered in her blood and the evil black tattoos that she had worn with pride. The woman could barely stand, and her eyes were wide and fixated on a single emotion, hovering on the edge of another.

It was clearly surprise that she first stared at Kira with, her mouth slightly open; but it shifted almost instantly to something else, something that appeared so foreign in Demetria's eyes that Kira couldn't believe she was seeing it. An emotion she clearly remembered—of the few things she did remember about this woman—and it became clear when a smile graced the woman's face; a smile that struck Kira harder than any blow or _jutsu _and rendered her suddenly powerless and afraid. Her body began to shake as she stared at that smile, which she had not seen in years, which she had dreamed of, which she had cherished above all other memories. The smile that without fault had always made her smile, that had always brought her from her tantrums as a child and had helped her weather the most painful events of her adolescence. The smile that from the moment that it had graced her face, Kira knew that it, above all things in her life, belonged to her and only her.

Her mother's smile.

But she couldn't speak now, facing this smile, which now graced the face of the woman whom she had regarded as a monster and an enemy. But her enemy was gone, vanished, perhaps dead—nothing remained of her on this woman's face. Demetria couldn't manipulate that emotion that she didn't feel, and which was now displayed on the woman's face in spades.

"Kira?" the woman said again, the woman who looked like her mother. "That's you…isn't it?"

Kira didn't answer. She couldn't move even her mouth.

"You've grown," the woman said, softly. "But your eyes are the same...that's you, isn't it?" Her voice wavered, and her smile fractured a little. "Isn't it?"

"Yes." Kira choked the words out, and began to shake.

"Do you recognize me?"

Kira felt like she might throw up. She could barely breath. But from the moment she had seen that smile, she had known, and she just couldn't believe it.

"M-mother?"

Her smile blossomed again, and Demi Wrynn took a shaking step forwards, seemingly unaware that her body was close to collapsing. She looked so honestly happy that Kira closed her eyes, unable to bear that smile any longer. What was going on? When she opened her eyes, the woman was standing in front of her, smiling down radiantly, without a trace of the pain she no doubt felt. There were tears in her eyes.

"Kira," she whispered. "My daughter…." She reached down, and embraced the limp girl shakily, and when Kira realized that she was so warm, and that the tears spilling onto her shoulder were real, she finally knew that she was not dreaming and that this was not some trick. Somehow her mother was alive. At that realization, she could no longer stand.

The two of them fell into a heap, embracing tightly and shaking with silent tears and mutterings. Kira didn't understand it, but she could feel her mother, she could touch her, hear her, feel her breath and tears and it wasn't a dream. Kylia was standing near the edge of the ruined wall that peered into the dark cell, and was crying too, and shaking from wanting to run over and embrace the woman herself. Her savior, the one she had adored and for whom she had protected Kira for all these years was suddenly there and it was no trick. She watched Demi's face, buried in Kira's neck, streaked with tears of joy and love.

Sakura watched as well, from behind Kylia, just barely able to stand. She didn't understand what was going on. Demetria was Kira's mother? Or was it the other way around? She had no idea how it had happened, how Demetria had left and Demi had come back, but she knew that the battle was over and so she sunk to the floor, unable to hold herself up. She managed to stay awake by watching Kira's small back, shaking against Demi and imagining her face, which must have been so happy. She wished Naruto could see it, too—he'd have loved to see a family reunited.

And that thought brought her back to their situation, and she knew that they didn't have much more time to rest.

Kira finally let go of her mother, staring into the woman's violet eyes and her beautiful face. It was exactly as she remembered it. Her mother had not changed, and was alive, and she wasn't alone anymore.

"You're back," she said, wiping her eyes. "You're back, right?"

Demi smiled Kira's special smile and nodded, and then looked past her, to Kylia. "Kylia, my dear Kylia. Come here. Come here. It's been so long." Kira moved slightly aside as Kylia walked over and then abandoned herself and flung her arms around Demi. The woman did not cry this time, but held the girl who had once seemed so strong in her arms and shushed her like a mother might a crying child.

"How?" Kira said aloud, as Kylia calmed and Demi now looked at her again with that smile. "Are you…?"

"Am I what?" Demi asked, softly. "I promised I'd return, didn't I, my little love?"

"But," Kira wanted to say, but stopped.

"No buts, Kira," said Demi. "I promised I'd come back to you and I have, haven't I?"

"Yes," Kira said. "Yes you have." But she couldn't resist again. "But how?"

"I don't understand," said Demi, softly. "I simply came back, because I promised it to you, and I could never break a promise to you, Kira. It was very dark, but it doesn't matter any more, does it? I'm back," she kissed Kira on the forehead. "And that's all that matters."

Kira hugged Demi again, this time along with Kylia. "You're back," she said. Then her eyes grew wide. "And hurt! We need to—"

"I'm fine," said Demi. "I do not hurt that much, but your friend looks like she might need it more. She cannot even stand, you see?"

Kira turned and saw Sakura, who was indeed struggling, and failing, to stand up. She got to her feet and reluctantly left her mother there, rushing over to where the pink-haired shinobi sat.

"Are you okay?"

Sakura seemed about to nod, but then smiled a little and shook her head. "I'd be lying if I said I was. But your mother probably needs the attention more, right? I hit her pretty hard."

Kira glanced back at the woman, who had managed to stand and was leaning on Kylia. "She said she was fine, and you can't even stand. Here, let me fix some of those bigger wounds." She bent down, laying a hand on Sakura's thigh where there was a ferocious burn caused by Demetria's shadow. Sakura seemed a little embarrassed, but didn't comment as Kira repaired the wound as best she could and moved onto the others. Kira didn't speak to Sakura at all as she worked, and tried not to look back at her mother. She finished repairing most of the severe wounds, not fully, as she knew she didn't have that much _chakra_ left, and the stood up.

"I'm sorry too."

The words came out of nowhere, and left Sakura momentarily confused. "What?"

"You know," Kira said, softly. "I'm sorry too. I hope that we can be better friends from now on."

Sakura stared at her, and then stood shakily—she was exhausted, but without the burning pain in her legs and arms, she found it tolerable. Kira was still looking at her.

"Thanks," said Sakura. She smiled. "I hope so too."

"Who is your friend?" Demi asked from behind them. She was smiling at both of them, and Kylia was busy wiping the blood from Demi's forehead and cheeks with her sleeve, though Demi kept telling her that it was alright.

"Haruno Sakura," said Sakura, bowing slightly. "P-pleasure to meet you." She had not quite gripped what was going on. She looked so much like Demetria, and yet she acted so different, too. And with the way Kira was beaming at her, not openly, but with her eyes and a slight smile, Sakura was sure that this woman was no enemy.

But how was that possible?

Then, a tremor ran through the floor and in some distant part of the bastion, there was a mighty crash. It echoed loudly, and reminded Kira of where they were, and of the chill that continued to run through her body. "We should go," said Kira. "The Scourge are here. We have to find Naruto and get out of here."

"He's probably back where we left him," said Sakura, her fatigue clearing, and her eyes hardening, as the situation returned to them. "Along with the others…."

Kira nodded and turned to her mother. "Follow us. We're going to get out of here, mother, so just follow us, okay?"

Demi gave a soft nod. "Yes."

"Are you okay? I can heal you if you want, you look—"

"I am fine," said Demi, touching Kira on the shoulder. "Please don't worry so much. And I have Kylia with me, I'll be alright."

Kira nodded, but even as they left the room, she kept glancing back at Demi as if to make sure she was still there. It was as if she, like Sakura, felt something was wrong; felt that although this woman was clearly no enemy, she did not seem at all there either. She didn't seem whole.

They passed the room Kira and Kylia had been locked in, listening to the distant cries and moans of Scourge, and the explosions and battle-cries of Crusaders outside the walls and in, fighting to their deaths to destroy as many of the Scourge as they could. But something was off, and Kira could not figure out what.

"Lady Demi?"

Kylia sound frightened. Kira whipped around, her heart pumping. Demi was standing on her own, leaning against the wall and breathing deeply.

"You're not fine," said Kira, moving forwards. "You're not, I need to heal you."

"No," said Demi, softly. "You misunderstand. I realized that I had to do something first, before I can leave."

* * *

Naruto gasped, glancing at Hisari and Tsuwabuki as they crouched over the chamber in the room that Hisari had first emerged from. The demon was distracted and it gave them a few moments to plan their next move, although they had little to work with. The demon had so much _chakra_ that nothing they threw at it would stop it from regenerating. Naruto was almost out, and he didn't think that the Kyuubi would offer its aid again so readily. Hisari was almost out too, and if she used any more of the power she didn't think she'd survive.

Yet, neither of them were willing to give up, at this point.

Naruto thought of everything that he knew about demons and _jutsu_ and fighting but nothing came up. How did they kill something that couldn't die? Hisari offered no suggestions, but Boreagos' words kept coming back to both of them. Destroy it utterly? Naruto thought he'd be able to use the _Rasengan _in conjunction with the wind elemental _chakra_, but it hadn't worked. It had felt wrong, as if trying to force two opposing magnets together. But he had nothing else. That was his strongest and most versatile attack.

But then something else occurred to him. But he needed—

"We have to find Yamato-taichou!" Naruto said quickly.

Hisari glanced at him. "_Why?"_

"Cause he can help us beat this thing, we need—"

"Don't waste your time searching," a voice called from the door, or rather just beside it. Naruto and Hisari turned and saw Yamato propped up against it. He was pale and covered in sweat and blood, and looked like he had crawled for the past few hallways. "I'm here."

"What happened?" Naruto asked.

"A lot," the man said. "But it looks like you might need me for something else."

"Yeah," Naruto said, touching his chest, just over the necklace he had won from Tsunade. "We do."

* * *

The city was singing to him, or it seemed to. He could hear it through the broken walls, descending into the room like an exquisite aria. It had no words, just feelings that were sweet beyond life, and as haunting as death.

Balnazzar hated everything about this world, except this place. This city was like a world in itself, a miniature hell that reminded him of the chaos of the Nether, though less refined and more grounded—more real. The Nether was less a place and more a state; it was just mindless, endless chaos. It held everything inside in its sway; like a massive ocean dragging along everything with it in the constant ebb and flow of its tides. It was beautiful and monstrous, and he so missed it that it seemed sometimes a crime that he was here and not back there, that he had to stay and rot inside a pathetic human's body because of some witch and his own cowardly brother, and a master that he did not want to obey.

But at other points, when the city spoke to him and chanted its bloody history to him, or sang like a beautiful woman of its feelings and its contents, all begging for war and bloodshed, he felt glad that he was here.

He felt at home.

That was why he hated the bastion and all its contents. He hated the humans of the Scarlet Crusade because they lived and believed themselves safe behind the white marble walls, and believed this city to be cursed and despicable and wanted to destroy it. He sent them to their deaths every day for this, even as he gathered more and more, using them like toy soldiers to destroy the Scourge—why, he could even hear them now, casting themselves from the battlements and detonating themselves using their suicide _jutsu_ in an effort to stem the tides of Scourge that were flooding into the bastion. That sound was the only sound they made that pleased Balnazzar. The other sound that pleased him was their constant affirmations of how righteous their cause was; knowing it was he who had swayed them from their paths towards the unforgivable sins they had committed.

He did not care that the bastion would fall, because when it did, he would come. He had been waiting for this chance for so long, a chance to face his enemy, the one that led the Scourge and whose voice joined in with the city's, always taunting him.

Whose voice was loudest now, against the singing city, whose voice Balnazzar would soon hear with his own ears, and whose face he would see with his own eyes.

Then, he glanced up.

From…above?

The ceiling exploded, and a thousand tons of stone fell as ropy vines as thick as tree trunks descended onto the demon, wrapping him tightly into a cocoon. He struggled to break free, but more kept coming, no matter how many he snapped or burnt. The vines weaved and dodged the falling ceiling as they constricted his arms and then his legs, binding them so hard that blood stopped flowing to them. Then he saw them.

The silver fox came first. She bounded towards him over the new floor, circling to the side and then lifting her tail up. The fur on it bristled, and then flew from her tail, becoming a hail of needle-sharp barbs that did not go for Balnazzar's torso, but rather his wings and limbs. They peppered his legs and arms and punched holes in his wings, and seemed to be covered in some sort of poison because his limbs began to burn and feel numb.

But he didn't give up so quickly. He let loose a stream of fire from mouth, setting the floor aflame, but it only chased off the fox. He twisted his head upwards and spat more flames onto the vines, and gathered his _corruption swarm _about him once more, and this time sent them out in a massive cloud around him. They circled in a violent tornado, driving another figure out of its hiding place and into Balnazzar's vision. He had not seen this one before—it had black hair and big brown eyes, but stank of familiar blood. He looked exhausted, and he did not move very fast, so when he came into view, Balnazzar blew a wide cone of purple fire, turning the ground into a sea of it. The human jumped flimsily above it, stretching out a hand from which a wooden pole extended all the way to the dangling vines that held Balnazzar, where it became soft and wrapped itself around, pulling the human up and out of danger.

Balnazzar fought some more, and began to struggle, merely wriggling his body so that the vines snapped from his weight, as feeling began to return to his arms and legs. He wouldn't die yet! Not yet.

But then something came from above, again. It slid down the vines and onto Balnazzar's back, grabbing one of his horns and then ducking down to stare straight into his face. Balnazzar saw blue eyes and blonde hair, and a fat grin that somehow mirrored his own when he had had held the same position with the boy. The boy had something glinting its hand, pulsing a faint green. It looked familiar, and when he recognized it he guided his _swarm_ back towards him, but it was already too late—

The black haired man dropped from above, finishing his _jutsu_.

'_Hokage Shiki Jijun Jutsu: Kakuan Nitten Suishu'_

The boy drove the stone into Balnazzar's forehead and then leapt off of him. Six long poles erupted from the ground through the flames, their heads shaped like dragons. They clamped around his arms and legs and neck, and then coiled still further until they had bound him so hard that it felt as if he were in a vice. But it wasn't just them. He felt like he was being squeezed into a ball, into an impossibly tight space. He screamed and thrashed but he couldn't do anything. His world shrank and blackened and pain flooded through his body, and a whistling sound filled his ears. No! This couldn't happen!

He hadn't made this city bow to him, this wonderful, wonderful city!

Balnazzar's body shriveled, its huge body deflating like a drying grape. The buzzing grew fainter and fainter until it vanished completely, and the stifling presence of the demon went with it. The dragon-headed poles dragged Balnazzar from the vines, so that it stumbled and fell to the floor, no longer trying to free itself. Yamato's hand was out, with a symbol glowing on the palm—_'seat'—_and his breathing was becoming increasingly labored as he forced every bit of _chakra_ the demon had into the glowing stone imbedded in its forehead. Every moment he grew closer to passing out, and his vision began to swim, and he nearly fell into the fiery ocean beneath him, before Naruto called out— "Hisari! Now!"

The blood elf came forwards now, striding slowly up to the fallen demon, her blade raised once more. She held it this time with its point down, and it shimmered with a golden light now that gave off a heat as warm as the afternoon sun.

This was the last thing Balnazzar ever saw.

Though his eyes were not on Hisari; they stared past her towards the ruined wall that Ramstein had emerged from, where the scarred, black and orange sky stared down at him, and he could just see the tops of the skeletal buildings of Stratholme. They were a truly breathtaking sight in his eyes, a beautiful sight, fit for such a wonderful city.

A city fit to be ruled by him.

The city he loved.

The blade descended.

'_Exorcism'_

It struck him in the forehead, right above the necklace. It sent a pulse of golden light through his sagging, frail body and there was a bright flash. Balnazzar's body gave a violent start before it shattered into black dust, the only thing left to be purged, all of its evil _chakra_ now compressed into the stone that was made for it.

Hisari withdrew her sword, and then bent down and picked up the tiny, shimmering stone. It glowed with a haunting violet light for a few seconds, which soon faded. She turned and walked towards Naruto, and held it out to him. The boy took it, and grinned at her through his obvious pain.

"Hehe, thanks."

Hisari stared at him blankly for a second, as she wondered why he was smiling. When she saw the glow in his eyes, however, she felt a smile touch her face as well.

"_Yes," _she said. "_You are welcome."_

There was a loud creak, and the golden doors opened once more. The room grew cold, as cold as if Boreagos had returned, but the figure that entered was slight and small and covered in armor as black as a void, and rode atop a horse made of bones and wreathed in pale light.

Silently, the Baron watched them all.

* * *

"What?" said Kira. "Do what?"

Demi didn't answer, and began to turn around. Kira rushed up to her, touching her shoulder gently and gathering her into a hug. "Do what?" she asked again. She had never felt so frightened. "We can do it together."

"No," said Demi. "I must do it alone. I'll just be a minute."

"No you won't," said Kira, softly. She was crying again, and had begun to shake. "No you won't. You'll just leave again."

"Kira…" said Demi, laughing lightly. "Don't act like a child. You're an adult, now. I won't leave you."

"Yes you will," said Kira. She couldn't help it. She couldn't help being selfish and childish with this woman, her mother, whom she hadn't seen for more than ten years. She was too scared that she'd leave again.

"Didn't I say that I would never leave you again?" said Demi. "I promised you, and I won't. I only must do this one thing alone, and then I'll be free to be with you. Just this one thing. I _must _do it."

"Why?" Kira cried. " And do what? Why do you have to do it?"

"Because I made a mistake," Demi whispered. "I made a mistake that I must rectify and it can only be done by me and nobody else."

"I'll just follow you," Kira said.

"No." There was no tone for argument in Demi's voice, and it sounded a little frightened. "No you may not. I forbid you to follow me."

"But…"

"Kira, did you know what I wanted you to be, when you were all grown up?"

Kira shook her head.

"I wanted you to be free." She smiled a little. "I was bound by duty from the moment I was old enough to walk, bound to obey, bound to do things against my own wishes and beliefs; I was a slave to those I had called mother and father."

Kira's eyes grew wide, but Demi did not stop speaking.

"I was freed but that didn't matter much, for I was bound to another duty. I was gifted with great abilities—a great amount of _chakra_, a talent for healing _jutsu_, and intelligence enough to mix potions and elixirs to help people. I was bound by those abilities to helping others, to doing a duty that I had never wanted to do, but had to. Perhaps it was because I had spent most of my life as a slave, but I could not abandon that duty. I had no choice. That duty took me away from you, and it broke my heart every time I left." She looked at Kira with a smile tempered by grief and age. "I wanted you to be free of that."

Kira didn't answer. Demi stared into her eyes.

"Please know that, Kira. No matter what happens in your life, what choice you make, I want them to be your own and nobody else's. No matter what they are, I will accept you, and I will always love you." She embraced her daughter a final time, squeezing her tightly.

"Kylia," Demi said then. "You have been protecting Kira? Of your own will, and not mine?"

"Yes," said Kylia, her eyes dripping as well. "I love Lady Kira very much."

"Good," Demi said, and reached out to embrace the girl too. "But now you must both go. I still have something to do."

They reluctantly let go, and she shooed them back to Sakura, who stood in the middle of the hall, feeling out of place but looking unreadable. Demi gazed into her eyes for a moment, and then looked away quickly.

Sakura grit her teeth and turned, unable to look at the woman any longer.

"There is a passageway in the room behind the golden doors," said Demi, softly. "Beneath the Grand Crusader's throne, it will open if you press a plate near the bottom of the throne's left side. It will take you out of Stratholme; it was how the former bishops of the Holy Light escaped to become the Scarlet Crusade."

Kira swiftly turned, staring at the woman again.

"Mother?"

Demi didn't look at her, and stared at the floor.

Kira advanced one step. She suddenly didn't want to go. She couldn't leave her here. She didn't care—she didn't want to leave her mother there. She began to walk towards her, but felt a strong hand on her arm, holding her in place. She looked into Sakura's hard eyes.

"Let's go, Kira."

"No," said Kira. "I have to stay with her."

"No, you don't."

"Yes I do!" Kira cried, trying to pull free. Sakura held on, and began to drag her away from Demi, who watched the two girls silently.

"Stop it!" Kira shouted. She turned. "Mother, come with us, please! I won't want you to—Sakura let go, please! I have to bring her with us! Please!"

Sakura pulled Kira around to face her. "Believe her promise."

The words only took the fight from Kira for a moment, and in that moment she stared at Demi, whose eyes she could not see beneath the veil of liquid gold that was her hair. Then Demi spoke to her, over the ever growing sounds of battle and slaughter, and then over her own renewed cries of despair, as she fought Sakura to get free with all her strength, while Sakura used all of hers to stop herself from letting go of the young princess and to avoid the tortured gaze of the trembling Kylia, who trailed in their wake trying to believe with all her heart.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

The black rider watched them, unmoving and silent. His horse, bare of flesh but as alive as a normal one, pawed the ground and snorted, and shook its horned head a few times. Nothing else in the room moved.

Naruto couldn't believe it. Just after they had expected to win, just after they had thought it was all over, this had to appear. He could feel the rider's _chakra_, immense and as rotten as a week-old corpse. He felt exhausted, and needles of despair began to prick his stomach and back, as he realized that this was probably it. He had no strength left, and even the demon sealed in his stomach had gone quiet, its fire extinguished with the Dreadlord's life. Both Hisari and Yamato could barely stand and not even Myrdraxxis could move. If the rider chose to attack, then it would be over too quickly.

He clenched his fists, furious at the situation and at his own weakness. Why did this have to happen?

He stared at the rider.

The rider stared back.

The doors burst open again, and Fen entered the room, dragging Sai behind him. The Forsaken dropped the weakened shinobi almost immediately and let out a yelp, backing up when he saw the rider in front of him. The rider acknowledged his presence with a simple turn of the head, which lasted for but a moment, and then it turned back to stare towards Naruto and Hisari. But it didn't look at them; it stared at the pile of dust that had once been Balnazzar. The skeletal horse whinnied, and licked its mouth with a rotting tongue.

The rider watched the dust, and it then uttered a low laugh that passed like a swooping shadow over the room. Then the rider turned his horse, and cantered past Fenritt and Sai, and was gone.

Naruto dropped to his knees, utterly exhausted, but at the same time so relieved that he was shivering. Tsuwabuki padded up to him, and let him lean on her back, which he did gratefully.

"_Let's," _said Hisari, in much the same way that Naruto felt, "_get out of here."_

"What the hell happened to you, Myr'? You look worse than after that time I let you alone with those two banshees in the Trade Quarter," Fen muttered, gripping the other Forsaken's arm tightly and pulling him to his feet and letting him lean on his shoulder.

"Shut up," Myrdraxxis said.

"Ah," said Sai, on Fen's right shoulder. "Naruto-kun, are you alright?"

Naruto got shakily to his feet, but he was smiling again. "Y-yeah," he called. "You?"

"I cannot stand up, and I may have lost more _chakra_ than is healthy, and I think I have to go to the bathroom, and—"

"Just say 'fine'!" Naruto shouted.

"Fine!"

Yamato snorted, and then considered their options. The hole made by Ramstein seemed the best way to get out, but that still led them back into the city, and if they encountered any Scourge—which they likely would—they would be in trouble.

"Ah!" Naruto suddenly shouted, stumbling towards the door. "Sakura-chan! Kira-chan! We have to go after them!" He looked at Tsuwabuki. "Let's go, we have to—" He suddenly stopped, and looked towards the door. Tsuwabuki uttered a soft bark as the doors creaked open once again, and three girls entered. Naruto's face split into one of joy.

"Sakura-chan!" he cried. "Kira-chan! You're ok—" He stopped, and saw from the way they walked, that they were not okay. He started to hurry over, looking worried. Kira shuffled a little ahead of Sakura and Kylia, her face hidden by her golden hair.

"Kira-chan?" Naruto whispered to her, when he arrived. She didn't answer. He bent down and peered into her face, and his eyes widened, aghast at the look on her face. "What happened?" He asked. "What's wrong?"

She didn't answer, and instead fell forwards, wrapping her arms around him. He went stiff for a moment, but accepted the hug, realizing that she needed it. He looked over her shoulder at Sakura, whose gaze went down, as if in shame, when their eyes met. She didn't say anything for a while, letting Kira continue to embrace Naruto. When the princess finally pulled away, Sakura told them about the passageway, which Fen revealed a moment later. Kylia took Kira by the hand and led her towards the passage, tremulously, and Sakura walked slightly past Naruto, touching him on the shoulder, before grabbing Kira's hand too.

"Can't forget this," said Fen, lifting the Grand Crusader's head, which lay at the foot of the blood-soaked throne. His attempt at humor went largely unnoticed, so he stayed quiet as they left the great chamber, and descended into a cool, clear-smelling darkness, which would lead them all the way out of Stratholme and into the mountains beyond.

* * *

The Baron rode his horse down a hallway in the bastion, hearing his master's people moaning in victory over the Scarlet Crusaders. The city was singing to him a ballad of victory—_his _victory. He felt it too; the life had disappeared from the city, joining the past chaos. The city yet warred, but it was a war now gone, now a memory and a part of the history of this wonderful city. And he could hear his master shouting his praise, and his dead enemy roaring in torment, and it made him conjure the vaguest facsimile of a smile, covered by the dark mask he wore over his mouth and nose. They were all such wonderful sounds; and he had to thank them, the ones who had made this possible. The city was now complete, because of them.

He hoped they would return someday, so that he might thank them again by making them a part of this city's history.

The hallway was deserted and untouched by the citizens, but at the end of it he spotted something. It was a corpse, lying propped against the wall.

It was beautiful.

He stared at the corpse, as he drew back on the reins of his horse, stopping next to it. He looked at it but did not move towards it—he didn't want to disturb its perfection. It was the most beautiful corpse he had ever seen: a beautiful woman, cloaked in blood, pale and stiff with hair like gold. Her head was tilted down, so he could not see her face, but he could imagine it wreathed in despair, and the image was too tempting. He stepped down from Deathcharger and bent over the woman's face.

Then he drew back, repulsed.

He returned to his horse. The smell of the corpse, and the unearthly glow of its skin, disgusted him suddenly. It did not smell like death, not like a corpse should, and it did not seem lifeless at all. With that look on its face, too, it did not fit with the past of this place; it did not haunt or despair. He pointed a finger at the corpse, as if challenging it, and then departed. The citizens would come soon, and the corpse would be no more, if they could touch it. If not, there was all the time in the world for it to rest there.

He left it there, and rode away, knowing that his master's disciples would soon come; they were due to arrive any day, after they had completed their mission here.

At that very moment, as she walked down the dark, dry tunnel, Kira felt something grace her cheek—a feathery touch, as if from the wind, which could not blow in this place. The smell of roses came with it, soft and distant, and Kira suddenly felt a weight off her chest and a warm feeling flood her.

She suddenly felt like she had to smile, like she used to. The sadness had gone as it always had.

'_I'll never leave you again.'_

Kira then began to cry, sinking to the floor and heaving great sobs; and even as the roses slowly faded, the smile did not.

* * *

It's finally over, that was a long one, wasn't it? 50 or so pages in Word, all together. Damn! Longest chapter I've ever written.

So how'd you guys enjoy it? Although I apologize for the wait, it was worth it in the end, I hope? It was meant to tug at a few heartstrings by the end—I just hope I did it well enough.

This is the end of the big arc, and we'll quickly get into the next one, which is more of a composite of mini-arcs than one big one. It'll feature some enemies you know and love, some enemies you don't know that well at all, and a lot of action, drama, comedy and all that stuff. It'll also feature death. I'll get started on that as soon as I can, but don't expect a long chapter; at least, don't expect another fifty pager for a long while. This was special. I just wrote, and a lot came out, but I hope it was all interesting for you. I particularly love the last scene, which I tried to make deliberately ambiguous so you all can have your interpretations of Demi/Demetria, who to date is my favorite OC, even more than Captain Blood (I didn't think it was possible either). Do you think she was a strong-willed character, or a weak-willed? Depending on your view of the last scene, I suppose.

I hope she wasn't too much of a Mary Sue, but she is going to have a big impact on the later story. I don't think she was that over-powered…

For those hoping to have The Baron be an enemy, sorry about that as well. I knew from the moment I began this arc that though he would be featured, he probably wouldn't be killed. Not yet anyways. Balnazzar was supposed to die, and he may have an effect on what happens next as well. Wonder how Sylvanas will react when she realizes her favorite servant isn't as loyal as she thought?

Well, that's it for now. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I, and see you in a week or two.

General Grievous

Translations for Ramstein:

**Rosenrot**, **Oh Rosenrot**-- Rose-red, oh rose-red

**Ohne Diche...Kann ich nicht sein--- **Without You...I cannot be.

**Schonste Stadt-- **Beautiful City...

(And from my brother, who so graciously was able to proofread)--

* * *

Grr. Arr. In a completely unrelated note, I urge all of you to buy the Serenity Collector's Edition when it comes out this August. If you don't know what Firefly is, you should look into it.

-N.


	20. The Smile

_Disclaimer: I forgot my pancakes. What say you, Naruto?_

"_You don't own me!"_

_So I don't…but that's not what I asked. What about you, World of Warcraft, you silly abstract idea who can't possibly respond to me in a coherent fashion, as you are neither physically capable of doing it, nor are you imbued with some strange sentience. _

"_You don't own me either!"_

…_I see…._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Benedictus was quiet throughout his recovery period, and after he was released he spoke no more than needed, and took to staying in the confines of the new chapel within the castle, which had been designed exactly as the old one had. The chapel held for him some very special memories, mostly of the girl he had most recently taught, but it too held for him the very last memories of his first apprentice. He would not speak to anyone about her, and only said to the panicked leaders that he she resembled King Anduin's late wife Demi in only a passing resemblance, and that it had obviously been sort of trick to enter the castle. He didn't think anyone believed him but he didn't care. 

Not much happened that week, while everyone scrambled around, pointing fingers, shouting and trying to organize themselves enough to find out where Kira had been taken and how she could be taken back. None of the ideas had been sound, and many didn't believe that it was all that necessary. Tsunade, surprisingly, was one of these.

"Sakura's with her," Tsunade had said, calmly. "They'll be fine." Benedictus had been unable to read anything in her eyes at that moment, so he was unable to tell if she really meant that. Sylvanas had been similarly convinced that it was nothing to worry about too much; Naruto, she felt, would probably end up saving Kira if she really had been taken that far, and if he didn't, she would figure it out for herself.

But the other leaders—Tyrande, Magni, Mekkatorque, even Vol'jin, Cairne and Thrall, had not been so convinced. "She is only a child," Magni had rumbled, "up against a monstrous force such as the Scarlet Crusade—we must do something!" He'd been adamant, but no matter how he had worked it, it would be impossible to mount a rescue attempt that would not be entirely useless.

"_They haven't sent a ransom or tried to contact you,_" said Sylvanas; she seemed almost amused by their distress. "_They obviously mean to kill her or to send her back alive and well and probably as insane as they are."_

"So you suggest we leave her to her own devices?" Magni thundered, his face turning scarlet, smashing his hand on the round table. "You suggest we leave them to the mercy of those monsters?"

"_They are not left to their own," _said Sylvanas, smiling again. "_You realize of course that we don't even know where she has been taken. The boy could already be there, and if he is, you can be assured that they will come back intact, and if not, we will not have to deal with the Scarlet Crusade again, I'd wager."_

"Small chance!" growled Magni. "What if he is not there, or they have left? You hold too much stock in this one chance, and we cannot lose Lady Kira—"

"_Why not?"_

The question made Magni recoil, the color draining from his face. The rest of the room had frozen.

"What?"

"_Why must she survive, when there are others who might be wiser to take her place? She is a child, and foolish, ignorant, in the ways of the world. She is hardly qualified for the position that she holds now. What would change, if she did not return?"_

"Many things," said Tyrande softly. Her eyes were fixed on the Dark Lady. "She may not be politically wise, as you say, but it is because of her that this entire alliance exists. Do not pretend that she is not the heart and soul of this group."

Sylvanas didn't respond, and sat back; she was still smiling.

Magni did not show up to the next few meetings, though he remained in the city. Benedictus observed him a few times in the Cathedral, praying at the altar. He nodded when the dwarf passed, but the dwarf never seemed to see him. His eyes were too clouded with grief, though Benedictus knew that it was not for Kira.

Tensions grew higher, and the leaders began to bicker, as Benedictus knew they would. Benedictus rarely spoke at these meetings. He didn't believe that they would get anything done, no matter how much they argued. It was the curse of all councils, and he hated that for it. Councils never decided anything, even ones made up of the most powerful leaders in Azeroth. They could never reach an adequate decision, thus making their entire purpose meaningless in his eyes. The Council in Anduin's time had not been much better, but then again, they had had a king to oversee them. The best comparison Benedictus could make was Kira in this situation.

Tyrande was right, of course—this alliance could not last without Kira or Naruto; if even one of them did not return Benedictus knew that the alliance would fall. But he felt nothing—the future was for once clouded so much so that he didn't feel anything. He did not know if Kira was going to return or not, and it scared him far more than if he had known. Every day, he prayed to the Light without fail, and hoped harder each day. Hoped that Kira would at the least return alive; and at the very most, that she would return with somebody else. Benedictus did not know if it was possible, but he hoped and he prayed.

Then, more than a week after Kira's disappearance, a message arrived for Benedictus, written in very proper letters on a dirty piece of paper, carried on the leg of a small bat, which disappeared in a puff of smoke when he removed it (but not before sticking it's tongue out at him and calling him something in Gutterspeak that he didn't understand, but was sure was rather offensive). Inside, he found the first truly good news he had heard in years, one that had him almost in tears of relief.

Kira was alive; in fact, nobody had died, and they had met with Naruto's group shortly after their arrival in Stratholme, and had escaped relatively unharmed. They had made it to the rim of the Ghostlands, at the very tip of the continent, and after resting at Silvermoon (for they apparently had a blood elf in their party), and speaking with the Argent Dawn, would quickly make their way back; it would most likely be a week, perhaps more. The message came with more good news—the Scarlet Crusade was effectively no more.

He happily announced this at the meeting that day, and was pleased to see that most—even the former Horde leaders—looked as relieved as he felt. Tyrande was almost in tears of joy, and Mekkatorque was happily hugging Magni, who no longer looked so old and worn, with such a large grin on his face. Sylvanas was smirking, obviously pleased that she had been right, and that she no longer had to deal with the Scarlet Crusade, either. Lor'themar Theron of the Blood Elves showed no reaction to the news, save for a slight rising of his left eyebrow, which Benedictus took to mean he was impressed. Thrall, Cairne and Vol'jin all looked pleased, but did not vocalize these thoughts.

"I am assuming, then," said Benedictus, when everyone had quieted, "that everyone would agree for this meeting to be postponed until after she has returned?"

"That would be agreeable," said Thrall. "I must return to Orgrimmar for a few days, at the least—I'm told there is a matter that needs my attention."

"Aye," said Magni, "I'd like to return to Ironforge as well. For a few days."

Nobody else disagreed, so Benedictus gave a nod. "Very well. This meeting is adjourned until further notice." He wished he had a gavel to bang at that moment—he'd always wanted one. He was far too happy, he decided as he left. He must have looked a little strange the way he left the room, almost sashaying, and humming a catchy tune, but he didn't care—he could think of no better reason to be happy than knowing that Kira was safe; even though he knew that there would be far more to the story than that, when the message had contained no trace of Demi and few details about what had occurred in Stratholme. But he did not let it dampen his spirits. He tried not to think about it.

After that, the leaders went their separate ways. Even Tsunade left, having received an urgent message from Jiraiya requesting her presence immediately—nothing life-threatening, he assured her, but something that she needed to address as soon as she could. That had been two days before Kira's message—immediately after it arrived, Benedictus received a missive saying that she had left the city and had returned to Gnomeregan with Mekkatorque. It also said that her bodyguards would remain in Stormwind until Naruto returned. Sylvanas and Thrall left immediately as well.

Some lingered, however—Cairne was in no hurry to return, deciding that his young grandson needed the lesson in responsibility, as he had been left mostly in charge of Thunder Bluff while Cairne was away. Vol'jin did as well—he had no reason to go back, and spent most of his time traveling the forests around the city, for he would return each day to the castle covered in mud and sweat and looking happy. Benedictus would receive more than a few complaints from the surrounding villages about his appearances there, but he ignored them. People would have to get used to the extra company, he decided.

Magni stayed for some time as well, intending to sort out the affairs in the Dwarven Quarter, which had been long neglected in Anduin's reign.

But almost as soon as Benedictus thought the future was clear, he got a feeling—it riddled him with chills, and often woke him in the night, panting and gasping. He couldn't tell from where or whom it originated, but he knew, once again, that something was going to happen.

But he didn't know what.

* * *

The Ghostlands were not like normal woods; they were always dark, always cool, like the very cave they had just left, even though the sky was always visible through the bare treetops: a blank, dark blue that showed no stars or clouds. It seemed to have drifted to earth as well, shrouding the distance with a dark fog that made it as difficult to see as in the Plaguelands. 

Though they were far more pleasant.

They were not oppressive, or fearful—in fact, the days within them passed like a dream. There were few sounds compared to the teeming life of the Plaguelands—only the occasional rustling of barely green shrubs on the ground, the loud groaning of trees and the whistling of a slight breeze through their many holes like a soft whispering, an omnipresent chattering that did not emanate from any one place and seemed to belong to many animals and none, and the soft thumps and scuttling sounds of the large spiders that lived in the trees dropping on their prey and then returning to the webs with it. But the sounds were not ever-present; sometimes it was dead silent for hours, save for their own movements through the forest. They were peaceful, and almost enjoyable compared to the ever-present fear of death or worse within the Plaguelands.

Naruto was able to sleep at night. Not well, but he did not find himself awoken by the wails of wandering ghouls, and his nightmares of Sasuke had almost stopped. He could not say he liked the Ghostlands, but he felt much less hurried as they went through it, towards the Eversong Woods, where Hisari's hometown and the capital of the blood elves—Silvermoon City—was. Hisari was leading them in a much less direct route than Naruto would have liked, but with so few supplies and so many injured, they couldn't risk crossing the Scourge in the center, who lingered there like tumors, despite their headquarters being gone, destroyed by Hisari's people a few years prior. But as such, he couldn't complain. They did not encounter anything on their way, so Naruto was left to his thoughts mostly, which was far better than the alternative.

He glanced to the very back of the group, where Kira and Kylia trailed along a little ways behind everyone else. Kira held her head low and hardly seemed to notice where she was walking. Kylia kept her hand trained on Kira's shoulder and sometimes her hand. She didn't seem much better however, although she hid it more than Kira did. His eyes lingered on them for a moment, as they often did, before flicking to Sakura and finally, hurriedly, back to the scenery. He could still feel her glare on his back. He didn't know what he'd done, but Sakura wouldn't stop glaring at him. It hadn't started until about two days after their escape from Stratholme, just after they had left the tunnel. She had been real quiet, and had kept meeting his eyes, smiling a little, and then looking away. But then, she'd stopped smiling and had started frowning, and that had led to a full glare by the second night.

He had no idea what to do about either situation.

Naruto could still hear her voice, hollow and brittle when she'd told them everything; she had never sounded like that, not even after her father had died. Since then she'd spoken nothing, not even to Kylia. She hadn't even cried. Naruto knew she was grieving, but he couldn't do a goddamn thing.

He had no idea how to relate.

How could he? How could he possibly attempt to relate, or even make her feel better about it? He couldn't even imagine what that must have been like, to have gotten somebody he'd loved so much back for such a short and painful time, and then realizing that you would never see them again. It seemed almost shameful to even try.

How could he cheer her up when he didn't know if it was right to?

So he stayed quiet as well, and mostly talked with Sai, Fen or Tsuwabuki, and sometimes Hisari. The elf treated him far different from before—she did not talk down to him, or insult him any longer; she spoke to him as if she were speaking to another, rather thick blood elf who didn't understand their language. She didn't tease him, as she seemed wary of him still, but Naruto found that he could even begin to like her, and that she wasn't so different from himself.

Sai had changed, too; the boy still smiled, but he no longer seemed to be trying to keep it up. Sometimes it even looked real—especially when he was drawing. Sometimes, it was almost a reflexive action, but when Naruto drew attention to it Sai fought it down and distracted himself by asking Naruto a bunch of questions that the blonde felt strange answering.

"So," said Sai, one day. "May I call you Naruto, as well?"

Naruto frowned at him. "I guess so. We're friends, right?"

"Yes, which is why I asked. I would like to address you informally."

"Well, you shouldn't ask somebody if you can do that," said Naruto. "You just do it when you feel that you should, like when you know we're friends."

"Ah," said Sai, nodding. "But when is that?"

Naruto blinked. He didn't know how to explain that, so he waved it off and Sai went silent for a while, until he brought up a question about what male friends did with each other in general, and mentioned something that Naruto didn't really want to talk about with Sakura, Kira and Kylia so near, and then something that Naruto didn't want to talk about at all, but Sai seemed fixated upon.

Yamato spent most of their days quiet and at the back of the group. Sakura had healed almost all his wounds, but he seemed paler, and always looked like he hadn't gotten enough sleep. He finally said, at Sakura's question, that he didn't like this place very much. The trees felt strange, almost repulsive, and he didn't like the feel of the soil, while inhaling the air was like inhaling a waft of cigarette smoke; Naruto found nothing wrong with air, however, nor did anyone else, not even Tsuwabuki's extra-sensitive nose.

"_I have heard night elves say the same,"_ said Hisari, "_when we have spied on them, in the past." _

Fen and Myrdraxxis stayed at the head of the group, with Hisari, and spent most of the time talking in Gutterspeak, unless Fen had something particular to mention. He would often say things about the area that Hisari knew well enough, but also about its past that she knew nothing of. Nobody knew why it looked the way it did, why the sky was always so dark, or why those with particular sensitivity to the earth or _chakra_ in general seemed to fear it, sometimes even going mad if they lingered within its borders. There was a section through the middle that they sought to avoid—the Dark Scar—where Arthas Menethil had marched with his Scourge to raze Quel'Thalas, the great city of the high elves. But by the end of it, especially when the Grand Crusader's head began to smell and rot, Fen no longer fascinated them with trivia and only tried, always unsuccessfully, to get someone else to hold the head.

But they soon reached the edge, without trouble, and the change was almost instantaneous. They seemed to pass from eternal night into glowing, ever-present day. The sky cleared, becoming a rich sapphire aglow with a sun that seemed brighter than ever before. The trees were immense and flushed with emerald leaves, which did nothing to block the radiant sunbeams; the forest they entered, the Eversong Woods, seemed to be made of light. It shined from every direction, as if they were in a world of pure light. There was a nice breeze and the air was so clear that when they first entered it, nobody could resist cracking a smile.

Not even Kira.

But this didn't last, and she quickly reverted. Even amongst the cheery chattering of the animals and the continual singing of the birds and the rest of the forest, she kept her head down and her eyes averted from everyone, and she didn't speak.

That night they rested in a small grove in the middle of the forest, which continued to hum a beautiful tune that made the horrors of the Plaguelands seem like a bad dream. Kira sat apart from the rest, and merely poked at her food, while Kylia kept telling her in a small voice that she needed to eat. Naruto felt miserable watching them, wanting to do something but unable to. Then, with a very audible sound of frustration, Sakura stood up, grabbed Naruto roughly by the shoulder, and dragged him out of the camp. He almost protested, but her fiery glare silenced him, and everyone else who was about to ask what was going on. She dragged him as far as she could away from the camp, until the light was almost blocked by the greenery.

"Stop it," she finally snapped, pushing him back and crossing her arms. "Now."

"Stop what?"

"Doing what you're doing!" she said. "Talk to her, you moron!"

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"Are you that thick, Naruto?"

Of course he wasn't. He understood what she was talking about. "What do I do? What am I supposed to do, Sakura-chan?"

"Talk to her! Cheer her up! Do what you do best!" she said. "Make her think about anything else than what just happened to her—are you that stupid? I know you've been watching her for the past few days, so why haven't you done anything?"

"I couldn't!" Naruto protested. "What could I have done? I have no right to tell her that everything will be better, do I? I can't cheer her up!"

"Why the hell not?" Sakura leaned so close that Naruto could feel her breath on his lips. Her eyes—visible even in the darkness—glittered like emeralds before a flame.

"Because I can't relate!"

Sakura took a step back, frowning.

"What?"

"I can't relate to her," Naruto said, his voice now soft. "How am I supposed to help her if I won't even know what she's going through? I've never had parents, Sakura-chan…how can I talk to somebody about losing one if I don't even know who mine were? I don't think I've ever felt that sort of love before, not really, at least…" he thought of Tyrande for a moment; she was probably one of the closest people he'd ever been to, but she was hardly his mother. "So how could I even think of trying to make her feel better?"

Sakura's look softened briefly, while the boy looked down, shuffling his feet.

But only briefly.

"What are you talking about?" she said, leaning forwards again. "You don't have to relate to cheer someone up."

"I know, but…"

"No, Naruto," she said. "You may have been able to do it in the past because you thought you could relate, but you don't have to at all. Maybe you can't sympathize, but you can act like you give a damn about her, and make her feel as if things are going to get better! That's all she wants, Naruto. Nobody could imagine what she's going through, but she needs someone to talk to her, anyways!"

Naruto's stomach plummeted, and he slumped. He felt worse than he had after all those battles; guilt and shame buzzed in his stomach like swarms of insects, and he began to shuffle more fervently, a sudden desperation to apologize flooding his mind. The silence stretched on, as these feelings amassed within him until he was no longer able to stand still. He ran a hand through his hair.

"Was I really that stupid?" he mumbled.

"Yes," Sakura said. "A complete and utter idiot."

"Why didn't you help?" Naruto muttered, frowning at her.

"Do you really think I would've been able to help?" Sakura said. "I haven't known her what, a year and a half? I don't know her all that well, and I confess I didn't like her that much before this all happened, so what good would my words have done? It would be the same as if she talked to me after something bad happened."

Naruto slumped further, squatting near the ground as he began to hold his head. "Dammit…I'm an idiot!" The guilt continued to buzz, feasting on his stomach until he began to feel queasy, and sweat.

"I know," said Sakura. "So shut up and do something about it."

Naruto stood, and took a few deep breaths. He began to feel nervous, but Sakura gave him a slight push back towards camp. He nodded, and then turned towards her again.

"Thanks, Sakura-chan…."

She shrugged. "Now you know." She paused, and then said, "I'd have wanted you to talk to me if something like that ever happened." She was glad it was dark. "You know. Comfort me."

Naruto blinked, and then he flushed. He was glad it was dark, so that she couldn't see. "Y-yeah. Course I would."

"Good," Sakura said, and then pushed him again. "Let's go. You'll do it as soon as we get back."

Naruto nodded, and his heart began to thrum. "Right…."

When the returned to the campsite, not much had changed—Sai was still sketching with a strange, almost dreamy smile on his face; Yamato was lying with his back to a tree, his sharp eyes moving across the campsite and into the woods beyond, and he glanced at Naruto and Sakura when they returned; Myrdraxxis was apparently asleep against another tree, and Fen was writing something in a small, leather-bound book; Hisari simply sat near the fire with her eyes closed, a pleasant smile on her face as she listened to the forest; Kylia looked like she was trying to sleep, but failing; and Kira was staring into the fire, barely registering Naruto's return, only until he had walked straight up to her. Her eyes, dulled by grief, stared up at him when stopped.

"Kira-chan," he mumbled. "Can I...um…talk to you for a moment…?"

Kira stared for a second, and then very slowly nodded, and stood up. Kylia made to as well, but Naruto shook his head very briefly to make her sit down. He took Kira off into the darkened forest, until the light and the heat of the fire had died completely. When they were with only the forest around them, still singing softly in a most beautiful way, as if to encourage him, Naruto stopped and spoke.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" Kira frowned a little; her face was barely visible in the darkness but Naruto could see that much.

"For not talking to you sooner."

"It's fine," she said. "You didn't have to."

"Yeah I did," Naruto mumbled. "I'm your friend, right? I was supposed to. Guess I'm not as big an expert on that subject as Sai thinks I am, huh?" Neither of them laughed, but Naruto hadn't intended it to be funny. "I should have talked to you."

"About what?" Kira asked.

"Your mom."

The darkness seemed to fold around Kira's face, and her expression was impossible to tell. "What about her?"

Naruto didn't answer, for a moment. He still had no idea what to say or do. Talking was good, but how could he cheer her up? Why did Sakura-chan seem to think it was so easy for him? He swallowed and looked at her again, but she had turned slightly away, off towards the orchestral forest.

Finally, he gulped.

"Do you remember her smile?"

Kira stiffened beside him.

"W-what?"

"Her smile," Naruto said again, softly. He didn't know why. The words just fell out. "That's what I always remember about people."

Kira was now staring at him. "Their smiles?"

"Yeah," said Naruto. "I dunno why, but I guess it's something I picked up when I was a kid, when I got so few smiles that I could count them on one hand for the first seven years of my life. I guess I just like the smile best of all, and to me that's how I remember people." He scratched his head. He hadn't told anybody that before. "Guess that's why I hated Sai's for so long when I first met him. It was so fake." He glanced at her. She was still silent and rigid, and was still staring at him through the darkness. Her eyes were a little wide, and no longer dull.

Naruto shuffled his feet again. He felt a little stupid suddenly. But he pressed on.

"So, what was your mother's smile like?" He didn't know it was right to ask, but he felt he needed to.

Kira glanced away, finally. She stared into the darkness, and let the sounds of the forest fill in the silence, while Naruto continued to feel awkward and grew ever more worried that he had said something stupid again and that she'd burst into tears at any moment. He was waiting for the first sob to begin.

But then he saw something a little surprising, and very beautiful, flare up in the darkness:

A smile.

"She had a special smile," said Kira, very quietly. Naruto stopped moving and looked at her. She turned to face him. "A special one, just for me; it made me smile every time I saw it, even when I was a baby. The only thing I remembered about her, for a lot of my life, was that smile. I only had stories—what Benedictus had told me, what my father had told me—and all of them were about how she was such a wonderful person. She was beautiful, talented, smart, and so kind that she did everything she could to save people, to stop the suffering of the world. She was so kind that everyone loved her. But I realize that wasn't my mother at all."

Naruto's eyes widened. "What?"

"My mother was only ever half there," she said, softly. "She was just one half of a whole person—all good, and no evil. She tried to save everyone, no matter how hard that was, no matter how much suffering it caused to her family and friends and to herself. She did it because she felt she had to." She looked up into the canopy, where the clear sky was just visible. "She even said it herself…she was a slave. She was enslaved to what she had been taught in the past, to acting against her own feelings because of what others wanted. She must have been so conflicted, so _confused_...I don't think she quite knew what people wanted from her. But maybe because from her past—to keep the very parents that had enslaved her happy—she learned to keep them happy by smiling and by being happy, and so she bottled away all of those dark feeling that everyone feels, and became for everyone an angel that knew no wrong, and everyone forgot she was supposed to feel those evil things, even my father, even _Benedictus_. I don't think even they saw her real self, because she had sealed half of it away."

Naruto couldn't tell what her expression was, now. She had turned away again, so he moved a little closer, until he stood right next to her. "Kira-chan…."

"But," Kira said, "I think I did see her real self…at least when she was smiling at me. She loved me so much, Naruto. She put everything she had into that smile, because I think it was the same for her. Whenever I was around, she could smile too. I mean really smile, without holding anything back. Is it stupid to think that?" She looked him.

Naruto fidgeted, and didn't say anything for a moment.

"I…dunno. I never met her, and I don't really understand all of this." He looked at her with vibrant eyes, however, and he smiled a little. "But I can't think for a second that your mom didn't love you with everything she had, even if—" He stopped, and looked at the ground again.

"But she was so sad," Kira said to him, leaning closer. "She was a pitiable person, Naruto, and I see that now, I see that it's so sad that she could only be whole when she smiled at me—I don't even know if she smiled like that for my father, or for Benedictus. I don't know anything about her, Naruto, even when I picture that smile!

"But…I still smile."

She looked at him, and she was. Her eyes were glinting and she suddenly seemed normal again, happy and wonderfully beautiful.

"It still makes me smile, makes the sadness disappear, and you know why? I loved her too, Naruto. I love her so much that I don't care about how sad she was, how pitiable she was, because she was my mother, and Naruto, I _understand her now!_"

She had begun to shake, and was leaning against Naruto now, making him place a hand tentatively on her shoulder.

"And…she loved me too, Naruto," she said. "She loved me so much. That last smile, Naruto…her eyes were so sad…but it was still that smile...that same smile that I'll always remember.

"And that had to be real—she had to be whole—if she could show me that grief, right?"

Naruto looked at her face and into her hopeful eyes. He didn't understand any of this, but he knew what he had to say.

"Yeah," he said, softly.

Her smile held for a moment longer, and then the tears spilled down her face, and it shattered as she began to cry anew. She clutched at Naruto, and he held her for a long time.

"She never left me," Kira sobbed, softly, against Naruto's shoulder. "Because I still have her smile. She kept her promise, Naruto. She'll never leave me again."

Naruto held her tightly, but said not a word.

The woods sang a little softer, then, and Kira only spoke once more before they returned to the camp, her eyes brighter than before, a little smile on her face that made Kylia smile too, while Sakura rolled her eyes at Naruto who just blushed and sat down against a tree next to Tsuwabuki, who placed her head on his lap. The words echoed in his mind all night.

"Thank you."

* * *

"What are you doing here again, old friend?" 

Magni looked away from the altar, and stood up as Benedictus walked towards him. The old priest was looking far better since the news had arrived, and his golden eyes shined as brightly as the sunlit, stained-glass windows of the Cathedral. But Magni looked the opposite: his face was grey and sagged like a laden sack, and his eyes were dull and cold.

"What reason would I come to a cathedral for?" the old dwarf said.

"To embrace the Three Virtues and confess your strays from them," said Benedictus. "But I think that is not the reason at all."

Magni didn't respond, and turned back to the altar. Benedictus sat down on the pew next to him.

"I feel old, Benedictus."

"I hope not because I called you old friend," said Benedictus. "That was just a term of endearment, you see."

Magni snorted. "Are you sure you're a priest?"

"Positive," said Benedictus. "Though I don't share their fancy for boys, I confess."

"That was a long time ago, wasn't it?"

"Many years, in Varian's time, I think," said Benedictus. "You remember, do you not? Such a scandal it was. I remember not being able to walk through the streets without garnering a very nasty look from all of the mothers of the city."

"I was a much younger dwarf then," said Magni. "I remember being able to joke with Varian about it, over drinks when I had come to visit the Dwarven Quarter. He seemed to find it immensely amusing, I remember, and so did young Moira—though like all females, I think she found it more distasteful than amusing."

"So you grieve for that, then?"

Magni didn't answer.

"I miss her so much…I miss them all, Benedictus," he finally said. "I thought Moira might return someday but now I can hardly remember her face. I thought she might have been tricked…how could she love him? I do not understand it."

"We are not meant to, are we?" said Benedictus, softly. "Love, that is."

Magni began stroking his beard, and stared at the altar again. "And Brann…I miss his smile, you know. He could always cheer me up, bring me back to the present—then he had to go and get himself lost, didn't he? I don't know where he is now, or even if he still exists!" He pounded the pew with his fist, splintering it and standing up, growling. "And now I have to sit in the same room with those murderers!"

Benedictus looked at the dwarf, as he stood there and shook with anger. He sighed.

"Forgive me," Magni finally said, when he stopped shaking and he had returned to his seat. "I didn't mean that."

"You did," said Benedictus. "But it's understandable. You cannot expect to get along with them in the span of two weeks, Magni."

"No," said Magni. "I don't expect to get along with them at all, and I think that is the exact problem. I am too old, Benedictus, I have seen too much and it has made me bitter towards the world. I thought it would be easier than this, when I told that young man that I would join this alliance. I thought of how wonderful the world would be if we could stop these wars, but that was only my head and my hopes! When I heard that damned witch woman speak for the very first time, I heard every one of my people that had been killed by the Horde and the Scourge—I heard my _brother_ Benedictus—scream at me to kill her. I was able to talk normally with them but I was so close to exploding that I thought I wouldn't be able to do it." He looked at Benedictus with hopeless eyes. "I am too old, Benedictus…far too old."

Benedictus looked at the shattered, ancient dwarf. He leaned over and clapped a hand on Magni's shoulder.

"Go back to Ironforge. Get away for some time, and return with a fresh mind, Magni. Remind yourself of why you can—and you will—endure this." He stood up, and gave the old king a bow. "I must, regrettably, take my leave. I don't expect to see you here again, Magni."

The Archbishop walked away, leaving Magni standing there, looking upon the ancient altar with his dull eyes.

* * *

The next day they arrived at Silvermoon City; it was tucked deep in the forest, but its spires and sounds and smells could be heard for miles around. Hisari led them through the woods, avoiding the paths—it would get them there faster, as the high elves had built the roads a long time ago with the intention of showing visitors the wonderful scenery more than forging a direct path to their cities. The blood elves didn't mind it, either, and took pride in their ancestors' roads, so they hadn't changed them. But Hisari said it would take almost half a day longer if they followed the road, so they went straight through the trees, occasionally crossing the wide dirt road, which was covered in a canopy of trees that made patterns of sunlight on it, making it appear arcane and mystical. 

They came first to the edge of the woods, where the road passed them once again, only this time it was not dirt, but cobbled with beautiful white stone that glowed in the sunlight as if they were soaking it up. The road led up a small hill, to a cavernous red and gold gate upon towering white walls with gold-topped towers and billowing red flags. But as they approached it, Naruto's attention was caught by something very odd. There was a bridge before the gates, but it didn't appear connected to anything. It floated in mid-air, several feet from the end of the road to the start of the path leading up to the gates. Torches lit with green flames were lit on each end, but they hovered as well, unconnected to anything.

Hisari came to stop next to the bridge.

"How's it doing that?" Naruto asked.

Sakura looked a little closer. "_Genjutsu_?"

"_In a manner of speaking,_" said Hisari. "_Nobody but a blood elf could cross this bridge unharmed. It is why our enemies rarely approach from the front_."

"What do you mean by 'a manner of speaking'?" said Yamato.

Hisari grinned. _"Illusions are only one of the problems for those crossing this bridge."_

"In other words," said Fen. "It's so laden with _chakra_ that you could call it _enchanted_ or something like that. You'll find that most blood elves are like Hisari here, in that they love making things go boom with as much _chakra_ as you can possibly imagine."

"_We have enough to spare,"_ said Hisari. "_Some even like to call what we do 'magic'."_

Hisari stepped onto the bridge, and held out a hand. A familiar green light coiled around it and then extended to the threshold. There was a small shattering sound, and suddenly something appeared—it seemed to fade in from nothing, a monstrous figure that made everyone jump back and draw some kind of weapon, save for Hisari.

It was massive—nearly fifteen feet tall and made of nothing but glowing rocks carved and arranged into a human-like figure, floating a few inches apart from each other. Where it's face would be was a rock with a carved out portion where a glowing blue smoke resided, mixed with an angry red that seemed to be getting more pronounced as they watched.

It said something nobody but Hisari could understand—it reminded Naruto of the night elf tree beasts—the Ancients—that stood guard outside the walls of Darnassus. But the creature's voice was not nearly so beautiful—it was hard, mechanical, monotonous and it grated the ears; even Hisari seemed to recoil from the very sound of the creature's voice.

She spoke back to it, and her voice sounded infinitely better—the language was noticeably different from the night elves', but retained the light, almost singing quality. The beast didn't respond, and then it turned and vanished again as it crossed the threshold of the bridge. Hisari nodded, smiled back at them, and then followed.

"You must hate those things," said Kira, softly, when they were past the bridge with no other incident. "They make your language sound awful." She had become far more talkative since hers and Naruto's talk, though she was still quiet at points and looked distant, despite her renewed cheer. She assured everyone that she was fine, and that she just needed to speak with Benedictus for a while. Everyone knew it would take more time, but they were all pleased to see her change.

"_Yes,"_ said Hisari. "_They are good protectors but we have not yet found a way to make their voices better."_

They entered a large hallway, where two statues of the same blood elf dressed in regal robes stood on either side, gazing at each other sternly and clutching balls of green flames.

"_Our missing king,"_ said Hisari. "_Kael'thalas Sunstrider."_

"Where'd he go?" Naruto asked.

"_Outland, it is said."_

"What's that?"

"It's the same place," Kira said before Hisari could, "that the orcs originally came from. It's another world, just like yours. There are—or were—portals built to it a long time ago, but they've been ineffective since. But why would he go there?"

Hisari shook her head. "_I know not. But we have spared no expense in attempting to find him again, even if it means opening the portals to Outland. Regent Lor'themar has been an admirable leader, but it is the wish of the people that Lord Kael'thalas should return, and reassume his duties as king."_

Past the grand hall was a vast street, made of white, smooth stone and lined with golden bars to mark the sidewalks. It was crowded with people—all dressed in red robes or armor, all as fair and beautiful as Hisari, and all with the same glowing green eyes. Many stopped and stared as the group walked down the street, gazing at the oddities that lined the various shops and buildings of the street. They saw a broom dusting the front of a shop by itself, and it occasionally did a little dance for those who looked on, while the shopkeeper stood near the entrance to the shop and looked rather pleased with himself. Some shops were filled with strange machines that buzzed, moved, floated and glowed every manner of color, and these were usually filled to the brim with eager customers. Hisari said that most of the machines didn't do anything that couldn't be done by hand, but blood elves were slaves to convenience. They passed shops filled with books, shops selling strange animals to be kept as pets (which both Kira and Sakura frowned on), shops with obscure names and purposes, shops filled with smoke, shops filled with weapons, chemicals, and powders. Some shops sold solely herbs from the rarest places on earth (again, Hisari said that this was mostly a scam—they more than likely came from the Eversong Woods or the Ghostlands and had been changed a bit by a clever _jutsu_.)

"They use _jutsu_ for everything," said Yamato, sounding a little disgusted. "They don't treat those arts with respect."

Hisari didn't answer him, so Fen did.

"They don't have to treat it with respect. They aren't shinobi, you know, and their lives don't revolve solely around battle." Fen looked keenly at the shinobi, who didn't respond and simply looked sourly as a few blood elves passed, their bags floating behind them.

Naruto, however, looked excited. "How do they do that? Make things float? Can I learn?"

"Why would you do that, Naruto-kun?" asked Sai.

"To fly!" Naruto said brightly. "It'd be awesome!"

"_You can't," _said Hisari, sounding amused. "_Such techniques mostly use runes and require an immense amount of _chakra _to keep active. As I said, we have the ability, but I'm afraid that your kind does not."_

Naruto looked annoyed for a while, but this disappeared when they found out where'd they be staying: a large, white palace topped with golden domes and spires, whose entrance was covered by a thin strip of cloth that danced in the breeze. Inside it was just as luxurious as it looked—the carpets were soft down and all of the furniture covered in silk; it was amazingly cool and smelled like spices and aromatic oils, and a thin smoke wafted from underneath a few doors that made Naruto feel relaxed beyond measure.

Hisari spoke with the innkeeper, and they were given three rooms in which to sleep—Fen, Myrdraxxis and Yamato in one, Naruto and Sai in another, and the girls in the largest of them.

"Where's your house?" Naruto asked Hisari.

"_I have none,"_ she said. "_I mostly remain at inns, and because I am a blood knight, I am not required to pay. It is the least they can do for we who defend them."_ She then ushered them into their rooms and told them to get their rest. She would inform the Lord Regent of their presence while they slept, and they would stay three days for recovery, before Matthias came to pick them up and take them to the Argent Dawn.

"Hope those guys can wait for a while," said Naruto, before he entered his room. "But they'll probably hear about what we've done before we even get there, won't they?"

"They'll probably have a feast waiting for us," grinned Fen. "One thing about the Argent Dawn is that they reward you quite well, especially if it's for their cause."

"I just don't understand," said Sakura. She stood outside her door, wanting to sleep but was far too excited. "How have they lived there for so long? The danger must be incredible, don't you think?"

"True enough," said Fen. "But those guys are pretty tenacious. It'd take a hell of a lot to get rid of them, especially since they're as devoted as the Crusaders were in their pursuits to destroy the Scourge, only you know, without the crazy." The Forsaken grinned at Sakura in a way that might have been reassuring had his face been intact. "Don't worry, they'll be there when we get back, and you guys will have one more ally for the future, I think."

* * *

His master's servants arrived unseen, exactly as he had been told they would. 

The Baron sat in a room surrounded by instruments of torture, watching as a number of small men whose skin looked like poorly made patchwork quilts tottered about the room, lifting the monstrous rotting arms of the former abomination, Ramstein. The Baron, had he possessed any conception of regret or loss, would have been sad to lose such a devoted and powerful servant. Ramstein had served him and his master more faithfully than any other abomination; but as it stood, he only cared about the parts. Ramstein had been made of very special parts, and it would be foolish to waste them.

They arrived as he watched, making not a sound. He was _almost_ startled to see them: standing at the entrance to the room, four of them all dressed in black robes and hoods, one of them carrying a black sack that was very full, and darker near the bottom; but in death nothing surprised him any more.

Death, he had been told in life, was the final surprise.

'_Welcome,' _he said to them, and nodded.

The one holding the sack stepped forwards.

"Our mission," he said, in a calm manner with a deep voice and an accent that he could not place. "Is complete."

"_Both?"_

This time, another of them stepped forwards. This one was short and slight and very obviously female from the dark hair that spilled from beneath her hood. She pushed a hand up under the hood, making the dim light reflect from her spectacles, and then she held up her hand, which had a small square box in it.

"We have it," she said. "Just like he asked. We found them in the…um, Western Plaguelands…was it?" She looked to the one in front for confirmation, but the big one next to her with a large sword strapped across his back nodded instead. She continued, but sounded slightly irritated. "There weren't many of them left, but the ones we found had mutated almost beyond recognition. They weren't even human-like, anymore. What does he want this for, anyways?"

"_Stronger allies," _The Baron said. He then nodded to the one with the sack. "_Show me."_

The figure walked towards him, until The Baron could see his eyes, and once he did he felt it. It was a sickening presence, powerful beyond measure, but violent and wicked too—_cursed_. The boy did not emanate it, only his eyes did—they were frightening eyes, he saw, red with black that seemed to be older than time, and as twisted as the Nethers—nothing his master could create. But he saw on the—_child's_ skin, for he could be no more than sixteen years of age—the paleness of death, and he felt the arctic winds of his master's realm from the boy's breath, and he heard no beating of the boy's heart. This boy, he saw, was like him. He smiled beneath his mask.

"_Show me," _he said again, for the boy had stopped moving and was now simply staring at him.

The boy nodded, and reached into the sack. He produced a head, that of a man, whose face was horrified in death. It was lovely to look upon.

"_All of them?"_

"None escaped," the boy said. He dropped the head of the Argent Dawn's leader, Maxwell Tyrosus, back into the sack and then tossed it at the Baron's feet. "What would you have us do next? We were told to report to you once our current mission had been completed."

"_You wait."_ The Baron motioned to one of the small patchwork men, and the creature tottered over and dragged the sack away. "_And you listen. Enjoy the sights, as they say."_

"Of this dump?" snorted the one with the sword on his back. "It reeks, and there's hardly anything to drink here, as it is."

"But," the fourth figure, who had not spoken yet and was the largest of them all, looked down at the sword-bearing one. "You don't drink anymore…"

"So?" that one snapped. "It's a hard habit to break, especially for someone like me who's _made of fucking water_!"

"Fine," said the boy in front with the terrible eyes. "Tell us when you have need of us again."

"_I shall."_

Uchiha Sasuke turned and walked away from the Baron, and his companions followed, and they went as silently as they had come and were gone before the Baron had realized it.

* * *

Shorter chapter, but a good place to end, I think. Rest and relaxation for the warriors now, while the action shifts to another part of the world, and things begin to happen that I hope you guys won't expect. 

I hope the scene with Kira and Naruto made sense; if you still don't understand why Kira still loves Demi despite her only being half there (and maybe even deluding herself into thinking that Demi might have been whole) refer to what Benedictus says to Magni about love. That's my view on it, at least.

Sasuke's here as well, isn't he? You'll be finding a bit more about his doings this arc as well. He's been through a lot since we last saw him, as you'll see.

What really surprised me was that so many of you didn't realize that Demi was dead. Yes, I made it ambiguous, but only to the cause of her death. I said "corpse" many times during that scene, so yes, she is dead, and no, she will not be coming back. Sorry for you fans, but I never intended her to come back at all. That's part of the tragedy of her character.

See you guys next week, with more treachery and the beginning of the new arc, which I will keep you in suspense for until the next chapter comes out!

General Grievous


	21. The Incident Pertaining to a Chair

_Disclaimer: I struggled long and hard (about 4.3 seconds) to come up with this disclaimer, which evolved from containing the words "gasp" and "My god" and something involving me writing it at the end of the story, for a twist, but deciding on narrating what actually happened, and then falling into a never-ending loop wherein In restate the same things over…and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and…I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft, though all of the characters not under copyright are mine and mine alone._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Magni laid his head against the wall of the empty tram and stared at the blurred stream of light on the cave wall from the torches that lit the tracks. He let out a mournful sigh, and tried to think of anything other than what he felt.

Old.

His body felt old; it sagged like a sack of rocks, bulging in all the wrong places—too much around his middle, not enough around his arms, and hardly at all around his manhood, (which these days he didn't think of much, as it was little use to him anyways). But his joints were stiff and his skin wrinkled and soft, and his muscles had deflated and his bones were brittle and ached all the time and he found it hard to stand and walk. He hated listening to the creaks and groans his body made when he so much as moved a leg to walk, or stand up from a chair. He hated the way his vision blurred and he became slightly out of breath when he worked too much at the forges or simply walked too much too quickly. He hated also the way his body seemed to ignore his very commands; it wanted to go to the bathroom constantly and he could never hold it as long as he would have liked, and it moved slower and sometimes hardly at all.

His mind felt old, too; he found himself forgetting; sometimes minor things, such as what he had done or what he intended to do that day. Sometimes this occurred hours apart, but sometimes it was only minutes. But sometimes he forgot larger things as well; the names of his advisors, where he had been staying in the Dwarven Quarter in his visit to Stormwind, and sometimes the name of his dead son. He found it hard to think, as if his mind were full of fog, and he grew restless and enclosed in places before he had found lovely and peaceful. His temper had changed, too. It was not like it had used to be, and he missed the fury he could generate in his youth from something as simple as stubbing his toe; now, he felt tired, defeated and his anger only flared when stoked by something very flammable—such as the face of his former enemies, the ones who had killed countless numbers of his people in the past.

His soul was tired most of all.

It disgusted him in some ways, but he couldn't help it. He had told that boy, almost the day he had arrived at Ironforge just over a year and a half ago—a single boy who had just completed an impossible feat of destroying one of the strongest monsters to have made its home in his kingdom; a boy with an eager, hopeful face that had warmed his heart and made him hope for the future. Just looking into that boy's eyes had made him hope that perhaps what he had come to propose _was_ possible.

The world _could_ be united, and the races _could_ be at peace.

He had latched onto that hope, because in his youth it had been a hope of his as well. Before everything had happened—before the Fourth War against the Horde, before the Third War against the Scourge and the Legion—before he had watched so many of his people die, and before he had lost his brothers and his daughter—one to death, one to the unknown, and the last to love. Before all that remained of them were memories and the rings in his beard that had belonged to his daughter. Before he had been chipped away until there was so little left, had become so worn by time and grief that his very bladder controlled his entire view on the world!

That hope had held, however; he had listened to tales of the boy's success, and his own hope had continued to grow and flourish until he was sure it would work, he was _sure_ that the world could become allied to a single cause, and could live in peace for a time.

But then, at that pinnacle of his hope, he had met them—he had met the ones behind the atrocities committed against his people, the ones who had orchestrated a thousand slaughters of his dwarves and their allies—had shook their hands, and had even _laughed_ with them! It sickened him, and every time he saw their faces he wanted to be their enemy again because it was so much fucking easier than sitting there and listening to them speak and treating them as his equal!

But he hated that line of thinking. His disgust disgusted him. He hated the fact that it aroused his anger to be in the same room as them! He wanted to forget the past, he wanted to forget that they had been his enemies and wanted to believe that their peoples had suffered just as much as his. But he couldn't, he couldn't forget that. If he did, he felt that he would forget his people, too. He would forget that they died to protect their families and their lifestyle, and if he forgot that then their deaths would be meaningless!

He could not let go of that past.

So how did he continue into the future?

He was too old.

He did not believe he could do it. He was not needed, not anymore. As a king, he was now only a hindrance; if he could not accept this new future, then he did not deserve to live.

But, Benedictus' words still resounded—'_Remind yourself of why you can and you will do this.'_ He knew what the man spoke of. He had been king of the reason for half a century, and it was the very reason he could not forget the past.

His people.

They were no longer the old ones—they were a new generation, one that would soon forget the evils of the past, where orcs and trolls were devils with which to frighten children, and would soon learn what he could not—acceptance. He could not let his prejudices sink into the new generation, because they had gone on far enough.

But it was so hard that for the first time in his life, he was accepting the possibility of failure.

His hands shook a little when he thought of that and he sat up, shaking himself awake. Could he fail his people? By not accepting the present and the desire to work alongside his enemies, would he fail them? He wanted to think so, but the past continued to creep back, hissing at him in all the voices of his people and his brothers that he wouldn't fail, and that he would honor them if he destroyed his former enemies.

He couldn't fail.

He envied the young. Especially Kira and Naruto, the ones who had created the alliance in the first place; he envied their purity—only those completely untouched by such racism could have conceived of a foolish plan like that. But Tyrande had been utterly correct in saying that they were its only hope.

Experience and wisdom could come later, as now only that earnest _ambition_ to succeed was needed. Only those who truly wanted the world to become one and and had suffered nothing of the horrors of the past could achieve such a thing. There could be no half-heartedness, there could only be true acceptance. Acceptance was not something people like Magni could learn. It was something for the new generation to learn, and to continue until that old hatred was forgotten.

He would continue. Though he would hate his enemies every time he heard them speak, every time he looked into their eyes, he would restrain himself because that's all he could do.

Because he was far too old.

The tram began to slow, and he stood up prematurely for his departure. The station of Ironforge came into view a moment later, a large platform made of solid, black stone polished perfectly smooth. His grandfather and father stood guard near the entrance, armed with their monolithic hammers as if to scare off those who might bring harm to the occupants of the City Under the Mountain, when in reality they were merely lifeless stone.

He wondered if he would stand guard there someday, too.

If he did, he hoped they would make him younger.

He crossed the room towards the door, and noticed how silent it was. Normally there would be guards there to greet him, or one of his advisors—he was _sure_ he had sent a carrier pigeon explaining his return. But there was nobody. Had he forgotten again?

He cursed himself until he reached the stairwell and found out that he had indeed sent a pigeon.

He was allowed one moment of pure astonishment, which was given no time to become disgust, despair and anger. The attack came suddenly from behind and he was forced to leap out of the way and deflect the blades of a flying weapon—a scythe with blades black like coal—with his gauntlet. It didn't pierce the Dwarven steel, and crashed into the wall beside his father's statue, shattering the stone easily.

"Fuckin' hell," a voice snapped from behind him. Magni turned and saw a man walking towards him. The man was very strange looking—he had silver hair slicked back and wore a black cloak, embroidered in crimson clouds.

"Shit, my attacks are always so goddamn slow," the man said, pulling the black cord attached to the scythe, returning it to his hand. "Even a fuckin' dwarf as old as this guy could block it." The man didn't seem to be speaking to himself, because it was loud enough to echo throughout the room.

"Who are you?" Magni rumbled. He drew his twin hammers, fury descending like a cloak about his shaking shoulders. "And why…_have you done that to my people_?"

The man smirked at him, shouldering the scythe. "I didn't do that. I don't crush things—you'll have to ask my friend."

Magni turned. From the pile of bodies—all with crushed skulls and broken limbs—a monstrous figure emerged, leaping down the steps and landing in front of Magni. His attacker didn't speak or even stop—he drove a foot into Magni's stomach, flattening the heavy plate-mail against his chest and throwing him backwards. Magni landed near the edge of the tram tracks, gasping and hardly able to move.

"_Don't," _the giant said, covered in dwarven blood, "_call me a friend, Hidan. I'm not friends with a kid like you."_ Magni couldn't see much of his face—it was covered by a black mask and hood that showed only his eyes—solid black with pearly white pupils. His voice was bottomless and cold, and sent shivers down Magni's aching spine.

Magni managed to stand, but his legs shook from the painful blow, and he found it hard to breath. He looked at his attackers, who were slowly advancing.

"Whatever," the other man said. "How long do you think it'll take us to kill this guy?"

"_I'll bet you one thousand it'll take more than ten minutes."_

"Ten minutes? Shit, you got yourself a deal!" The man lifted a black trinket that hung around his neck and kissed it. "I'll make sure this infidel—this Holy Light worshipping hypocrite—dies within _five_."

The other man nodded. "_Fine." _He sounded pleased.

They attacked.

Magni watched his death come greet him, though he felt detached—almost uncaring. There was no fear, or anger; just an empty sorrow that made him smile and his eyes well with tears. He'd see his brother again, and his wife, too. But he'd never get to see his daughter again….

…Or even meet the little grandchild.

It might be for the best, he thought. Yes. Perhaps it was his fate—the world had no use for the old any more, anyways.

So he grinned as he went, and made sure that it took three times as long as the foul-mouthed assassin had said it would.

* * *

Two days had passed since they had come to Silvermoon, and it had passed restfully, at least in a manner of speaking. On the third day, Sakura came to Naruto's room in the early morning before anyone was up, and proposed that they go out on a date.

"Huh?"

"Go out on a date with me," said Sakura, swinging her legs idly from Naruto's bed. She smiled coyly at him, and tilted her head to the side. "Today."

"D-d-d-date?" Naruto spoke so softly he might as well have mouthed the words, but she got what he was saying anyways. She nodded at him, and stood up.

"Yep, a date. It's the last day we're here, and the last two days I've been with Kira and Kylia, so I haven't had much of a chance to talk to you or spend much time with you, except for that one time that we met you and Sai when you were giving him those 'social lessons'." She grinned a little wider at that, and tried to suppress a snort of laughter that didn't work very well.

He'd been very secretive about those lessons, even among the blood elves.

"…You won't mention that to anybody, will you?"

"Not if you go on a date with me," she said.

Naruto relaxed. "You'll really go out on a date?" he asked. "A real one, or the fake ones like we used to do?" He referred to the four or five "dates" Sakura had let him go on with her the weeks before he'd left with Jiraiya. He still wasn't totally convinced they'd been fake, but he wasn't going to question her.

"It's more real," she said. "It isn't fake, but it isn't a 'lovey-dovey' date. It's one as friends, you know?"

He didn't really, but he nodded anyways and grinned. "Okay!" He looked at Tsuwabuki, who lay on the floor by his bed. "You wanna come?"

'_I don't want to spoil it for you,' _she said. '_I'll tell you when we need to go. Don't get _too_ busy.'_

Naruto knitted his brows, noticing her emphasis on "too". "Whaddya mean?"

'_I hadn't realized that you were that naïve. I'm far younger than you and I know about that—I knew about it when I was barely two years old.'_

"What are you talking about?" Naruto snapped. Sakura raised a puzzled brow at the forthcoming argument, and decided to prevent it by dragging him out, leaving Tsuwabuki to call after in a way that only Naruto could hear:

'_I'll tell you about it when you get back. It involves birds and bees.'_

It was, as always, an amazingly sunny day. Sakura wondered aloud, as she often had during their stay, whether it was just the climate or they had done something with _chakra_, as they had done to just about everything here, to keep the sun out. She marveled at how they could grow crops if it didn't rain, or even seem to have clouds (she hadn't spotted one since they had arrived). During the past few days, she had gotten no answer to that particular question, even with Kira being as curious as she. It wasn't that they didn't know—most simply didn't deign to answer, and some she didn't even get a chance to ask. Such as Lor'themar Theron, the Lord Regent, when he'd met them on the second day outside the Grand Palace—a monstrous, spherical building that hovered in mid-air above an immense pit whose bottom couldn't be seen. The elf had barely stayed long enough to consider it a meeting. Kira gave him a brief recounting of what had happened, during which he hadn't spoken a word or even so much as twitched an eyebrow. After he merely nodded, and then bid them good day and a restful stay, before leaving in exactly the same manner as he had arrived: similar to a soft breeze, disturbing very little and making no lasting impression. Yamato found that he liked the elf slightly more than the others because he didn't seem to flaunt the power he obviously had. But Naruto and Sakura didn't like him that much, though they had to admit that someone with that amount of control deserved to be leader of a people who suffered from a lack of it. In the end, Sakura's question had remained unanswered, though she hoped to have an answer by the end of their stay.

Though Naruto didn't particularly care about this, he nodded as they walked through the beautiful streets, gazing at the amazing sights.

Silvermoon City was not the biggest city Naruto had ever been in; it still paled in comparison to Orgrimmar and Stormwind, but it more than made up for the countless number of oddities it contained. They did not go a few steps without seeing something so new and bizarre that they had to stop walking to see it play out. One time, for example, they found themselves watching a pair of children play a board game that looked a little like _shogi_, but the pieces moved and battled, and whoever initiated the battle did not always necessarily come out on top. Twice they met people who seemed to be doing nothing but using _jutsu_ to outdo one-another; they would paint seals on things and make them move and frolic about, or would spit and make the spit become a small glass figurine. Nobody but Naruto or Sakura seemed to be impressed by this, however—most of the other elves just continued walking, though some stopped to give them condescending looks.

"It's so strange," Sakura said. "To see people using _jutsu_ everywhere."

"They don't even do it for real things," Naruto said aloud. "It's kind of annoying, now that I think about it."

Sakura nodded her agreement, but that didn't stop her from dragging Naruto to look at the many odd shops, such as one containing a large number of boxes that sang different songs when you opened them, in the most beautiful language either of them had ever heard. Sakura thought about buying one, but realized that she didn't have any money of her own. So they left to sample some of the other shops which included, but were not limited to, one that sold bottled smoke of different colors, one that sold self-writing books (for a quick fortune, in any language, the shopkeeper had claimed), and one that sold the most beautiful—and strange—birds Naruto had ever seen. They were brightly colored in orange, yellow, gold and purple, and when Sakura mentioned it, reminded Naruto of pictures of phoenixes that frequented the shops in Konoha.

On numerous occasions they passed the giant, glowing golems that they had first seen at the gates to the city; they lumbered along, repeating in the grating mechanical voice a few words that neither of them could understand. However, once when they passed one, it turned and rumbled in a thickly accented voice, "PREPARE TO BE…TERMINATED." Naruto thought it was serious and nearly attacked it, but when the creature just kept right on moving, he stopped and stared at it, wondering if it had made a joke.

"They didn't do that the last two days," Naruto said, as they passed a fountain where the statues moved and bowed to the onlookers, even as they spat water from their mouths.

"The voice sounded familiar," said Sakura, frowning.

"Yeah…maybe Fen's bored," said Naruto.

They hadn't seen either of the Forsaken during the past two days. It wasn't surprising, however—Naruto had been with Sai both days, trying to deal with the boy's sudden desire to become social, which hadn't turned out very well and had succeeded in giving Naruto a minor name for himself in the gossip of the city as being the boy who kept shouting inappropriate things at the bathhouse.

They sat down at a small restaurant, where the elves around them smoked large hookahs and conversed in their singing language—it was almost like being surrounded by music. They ordered, and as soon as they did, neither could decide what to say.

Naruto said it first.

"Why'd you want to come out on a date with me?" he asked.

She didn't answer for a second, although her face turned slightly pink. "Am I not allowed to?"

"No," Naruto said, blushing. "It's not that, it's just that…I thought you were…" He fidgeted. He didn't want to say the last part, and though she understood him, she waited for him to continue speaking.

"You know…" he said, waving his hands about, struggling for words. "Sasuke…"

She blinked. "Oh…that's what you were thinking of?"

"I'm wrong?" Naruto asked.

She didn't answer, and looked away for a while, towards a table where the chairs were walking on four legs, their occupants becoming increasingly frustrated as one of them kept trying to escape and making the blood elf on top fall into his plate of food.

"I'm trying not to think about it," she said, finally. "And when I do, I'm trying not to kid myself."

"Whaddya mean?"

"Nothing," she said.

Naruto frowned at her. "What do you mean you're not kidding yourself?" He leaned forwards. "What are you talking about?"

"Look," she finally said, a little hotly. "Sasuke is important to me, and he always will be. But it's no good thinking about it all the time, because that just makes me feel…I don't know…depressed. I learned that while you were gone—it's pointless pouting over it, so I just have to suck it up and try to enjoy my life." She sighed. "I've been trying to stay positive, like you always are—and I'm best at that when you're around, I guess."

Naruto turned a little red, and looked away. Him? The guy she'd beaten and yelled at? "W-with me?"

"Yeah," she said. She was investigating the chair incident more thoroughly now, as the chair had managed to gain its freedom and had taken off into the streets with its owner rushing after it, roaring in Thalassian. She hoped she would pass off the blush as simply glare from the sun. She didn't want to say what she really felt, of course.

"Oh," he mumbled, feeling slightly ashamed of himself. They didn't speak for a while more, but he blurted out, "Thank you."

"For what?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Just saying that, I suppose. I guess I'm just surprised, that's all."

"That you're important to me?" she asked, raising and eyebrow.

He flushed. "Yeah."

"We're teammates, Naruto," she said. "The past is the past, and I may have thought you were annoying then, but I didn't hate you, you know. I never hated you—that's kind of hard, you know? You're not someone you can easily hate—you're the type that can make friends with just about everyone. Worked with me, didn't it?" She smiled.

"Yeah," he said, grinning back. "Guess so."

"Now I've got a question for you."

"What?"

"Do you _like_ Kira?"

Naruto flushed a deep red, and stuttered, "E-excuse me?"

"Do you like Kira?" she asked again, emphasizing the "like" again. She was still smiling, but it now looked forced and he knew he had to play his cards right, or he'd get hit or yelled at again.

"Er…I mean…um…" He quickly became enraptured by the chair incident as well, which was now taking place to his right, in the middle of the street. The chair appeared to be dueling with the blood elf that had created it, and strangely, appeared to be winning.

"Honestly," she said. "I don't care if you do."

"W-why do you want to know, then?"

She shrugged, and looked away. "Just curious. You seem like you fit well together."

"Really?" She noted the absence of hope in his voice—it was merely shock, and for some reason that made her feel better.

"Yeah," she said. "And she seems to like you as well."

"W-what?"

"You haven't noticed?" She said, raising her eyebrows. "That was probably the reason we got off on the wrong foot—I think she was jealous of me and you."

"Why would she be jealous of us…?"

"Because she probably thinks I know you better," Sakura said, shrugging. "Or that you still had a crush on me, or something."

Naruto turned crimson. "She likes me?"

"I think so," Sakura said. "I talked to her about it a bit when I was with her—she wasn't very forthcoming, but I think she does. She certainly trusts you a lot more than most people, and she puts almost all of her faith in you." Sakura looked away again. "I got angry at her for that, actually. I didn't think she should be putting so much strain on you. She's gotten better, though—especially with what's happened recently."

"Yeah," Naruto said. "It was kind of nice, though."

Sakura blinked at him. "What?"

"Being so depended on," he said, shrugging a little. "It was nice, having all that attention, I guess. But I'm also glad that Kira-chan is getting to be herself more," he added quickly, and grinned. "She's going to need it to become queen." She noted the pride in his voice, as if he would play some part in it—though in all likelihood, he already had.

"You'll need the practice too," Sakura said. "For becoming Hokage."

"Yeah…" Naruto said, nodding a bit distractedly. She frowned at his reaction.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Naruto said, grinning at her.

They fell into silence for a moment, and both watched the climax of the chair fight, with ended with the chair victorious by striking the blood elf in the shin and then skittering away into a drain near the sidewalk and vanishing. The blood elf shouted beautiful obscenities at the drain as he hobbled back to his table, looking furious.

Then, Naruto said, "Where the hell's our food?"

The rest of their date progressed smoothly; neither spoke of Sasuke again, and soon it seemed to have never happened. It proceeded without incident (figuratively speaking, of course—they did not cross a street without an incident occurring. Similarly, Sakura was able to find out the answer to her nagging question about the weather, and was disappointed to find that it was just the climate) until they came to a small section of the city that neither had investigated during their stay—one that smelt strongly of iron and something else. It tingled the nose and clouded the sixth sense so completely that Sakura felt as if she had been locked in a _genjutsu_. She continually glanced at Naruto—who didn't seem to have a problem with it—as if to check if he was actually there. It grew heaviest near the bottom, where a small, almost unassuming looking, far shabbier than any they had seen yet, across from a few blacksmithing stalls. Its entrance was cloaked in red drapes and it looked almost sinister.

"What is that?" Sakura said aloud. Naruto stared at it too, sniffing a few times.

"Smell's weird," he said. He leaned closer. "Think it's some sort of brothel?"

"I dunno," she said. "But I don't think I want to find out, now that you mention it. It must be right next to a blacksmith's for some reason, and Tsunade-sama always did say that blacksmiths were rather…um…_uncouth_."

"That's probably cause they caught her trying to stiff them once," Naruto said.

"True enough."

Naruto then spotted somebody emerge from the small building, and hurry towards them—and halfway there, she stopped and Naruto recognized her.

"Hisari!" he called.

She walked over, nodding once to Sakura as she did. "_What are you doing here?"_

"Looking around," Naruto said. "What's that building you just came from?"

She brushed some hair from her eyes and then turned back to gaze at the building. She didn't respond right away, and seemed to carefully consider what she would say. "_My headquarters. That is the Blood Knight Citadel._"

"Citadel?" Naruto asked. "Doesn't look like one."

"_You have not been inside it," _she said. "_Nor will you likely ever be. Only blood elves can enter, and they cannot bring visitors. Forgive me." _

"No problem," said Naruto. "We were just wondering. Why's it look so…?" He didn't have the heart to finish.

"_We have more important things to do than make a building look pretty. It does not matter to us," _she said, sounding more like she was making an excuse, with her nose upturned and a slight haughtiness returning to her demeanor. Naruto knitted his brows.

"So you just don't care?" he asked. "I don't think I believe you."

"_Why?"_

"All of you guys are about appearance," he said. "I don't think you guys would keep it like that if you could help it."

"Yeah," said Sakura. "Beauty seems to be ingrained into your culture as much as _chakra_. There must be some reason why that building is kept like that."

"And," said Naruto, "I'm not gonna stop bothering you until you tell us."

Hisari glanced back at the shabby building, and then said, after a lingering silence, "_The people of this city...are not fond of us."_

Naruto's eyes widened. "What? Why?"

"_We are very devoted to our duties, and they do not begrudge us that—we do our best to protect this city and make sure that no harm comes to it, but that does not mean that its people enjoy being around us. The power that we use, and the very code we follow, is seeped in blood and violence, and they do not feel comfortable with us. You have seen what I can become, yes?"_

Naruto nodded. Hisari was now looking towards the blacksmith tents, watching their occupants go about their daily duties. She sighed and then returned her gaze to Naruto, her face slightly different.

"_The power that we can wield is unstable at times, and the Blood Knightt creed tells us to use whatever we can to defeat our enemies. We are the only ones among the blood elf race who embrace that power to its fullest, and use it to the point where we can become like that. We are trained to react with such violence, and for that we are feared and despised; that, and our supposed unflinching loyalty to Lord Kael'thalas."_

"Why would they hate you for that?" Naruto said. "You said people wanted him to be king again."

"_Among the aristocracy and government—the old families, and indeed, the majority of our population, yes that is true. But there are many these days—the young ones, who have never even met Lord Kael'thalas, and have not the faith the older ones do in his ability to lead us. Most of them call for the instatement of Lord Regent Lor'themar as the true king of our race. He has respectfully denied it, of course, because he is one of those that still believes in Lord Kael'thalas."_

"What do you believe?" Sakura asked, shifting a little, as she noticed that not once had Hisari turned to look at them.

"_It does not matter what I believe. But I have never met Lord Kael'thalas, or heard of him other than overly biased praise. I cannot say what type of person that he is. There are rumors, however—especially among the young, that he has made some dangerous allies, and that is why he remains in Outland instead of returning with our brethren that followed him."_

"What allies?" Naruto asked.

"_The rumors say Illidan Stormrage."_

Naruto's heart thumped. The name and the face immediately leapt to his mind, and a hand ran across his stomach, very briefly, as if his body remembered the immense pain a single cut from Illidan Stormrage had caused him. He remembered his cruel grin best of all, and the mindless joy it held. "Him?" Naruto said. "He's friends with that bastard?"

"I heard that too," said Sakura. "From Tyrande—that's why she opposed the blood elves joining the alliance."

"_Yes," _said Hisari. "_I do not doubt that Tyrande Whisperwind would be opposed to Lord Kael'thalas, given their history and ours." _She looked at Naruto. "_How do you know of him?"_

Naruto told Hisari of his meeting with the former night elf. At the end, she merely nodded.

"_There are many who would say that he is a perfect match for Lord Kael'thalas, who might be similarly affected by the Sunwell's energy as the Blood Knights—perhaps even greater. There are many who believe he has gone mad, and I admit that thought is very troubling."_

"What if he has?"

"_I cannot say," _said Hisari. "_But there are many who would say that if he returns, he would bring with him our doom." _Then, she turned back towards the orange setting sun and the slowly emptying main street, as shops began to close and people returned to their homes.

"_It is getting late," _said Hisari, after a brief silence. "_You must return to pack, as the zeppelineer will be arriving very shortly."_

"Are you coming with us?" Sakura asked.

"_No. I will stay until I have been given further orders."_ She looked at Naruto. "_But I hope to meet again."_

"Count on it," Naruto said, grinning at her. "Maybe you'll even be able to address me by name next time."

"_Don't count on that."_

Returning to the inn was only interrupted by Tsuwabuki's annoying announcement that it was time to pack, and after that, they settled in to waiting in the lounge of the in. In that time Naruto had to explain to Sai where he had been, and why he hadn't been able to give the boy some more pointers, and he had to endure a slightly annoyed stare from Kira (for a reason he couldn't fathom) that made him uncomfortable enough to prefer Sai's company to hers for the duration of the wait. Soon, Hisari came and told them that Matthias had arrived.

"_I have heard from Lord Regent Theron that the council has been postponed for some time,_" said Hisari, as they boarded the _Hindenborough, _with her standing at the end of the gang-plank, standing ramrod straight, as if about to salute. "_I hope you will return to good things, and I wish you luck in your forthcoming trials."_

"You too!" cried Kira. "Thank you for everything, too. I feel better now, about having your people in this alliance."

"_That is comforting," _said Hisari. "_But I don't know if it safe to base your judgments off me alone. As I told those two," _she waved at Sakura and Naruto, "_I am young, and there is much about our culture that I am still new to—you will find that not everyone are as agreeable as I."_

"But that's okay!" yelled Kira, grinning widely as the engines started up, and a roaring filled the air. "If even one person changes, then others can too! See you soon, Hisari!"

Hisari didn't respond, as they zeppelin rose out of sight, though when it was gone, she still held the smiling faces of the first friends she had ever had clearly in her mind, and smiled back.

"_Yes," _she said aloud. "_You too."_

* * *

Their trip to the Light's Hope Chapel was short, but brutally informative.

The bodies had been visible from the air, strewn about the entire grounds like paint spattered across a vast canvas. They did not touch down for very long—only long enough for Naruto and Yamato to get out and look around, Naruto noting the absolute astonishment and horror on the faces of every who had one, and Yamato noting the way in which they had died. There were no survivors, yet nothing else had been touched. The Chapel stood alone and silent as death, and within nothing had been disturbed. The food supplies, the maps, the documents, the books—everything completely intact. The small bathing pavilion in the back looked freshly prepared and ready to use, and still smelt of oils and soap. But nothing lived, nothing moved; the Chapel had joined the rest of the dead in the Plaguelands.

"It wasn't Scourge," said Yamato, leaning against the side of the zeppelin's innermost cabin. "It was too clean."

"Yeah," said Fen. "They weren't slaughtered—they were assassinated. Some of the heads were missing, and I'd wager one of them was Tyrosus, and the other his closest advisors. Whoever did that wanted to cripple the Argent Dawn almost permanently."

"But how could something like that happen?" Kira said, quietly from the corner of the cabin, where she had been since the discovery. "Who could…do that to all of them?"

"In terms of strength, or morals?" said Fen. "I don't know the first, but there could be anyone who would do that, especially for the right price."

"You're thinking some hired killer?" said Yamato. "I highly doubt that the Scourge would have need of those. They don't seem to care for the living much."

"They don't have to be living…" said Fen, "…or hired. You're under the assumption that all Scourge are mindless monsters that kill and eat anything they see. If you remember, the black rider—Baron Rivendare—back in Stratholme, was anything but that. The strongest Scourge—the liches, the Deathknights, the banshee—they're almost all in possession of their original minds and a hell of a lot of them are quite cunning. But I don't think it was one of those guys. I don't even think they would bother to do something like that, or even be able to. It seems much more like they were attacked by surprise."

Naruto remembered their faces. "Yeah," he said. "I think so too. Some of them didn't even have weapons drawn."

"I think I understand what you're saying," said Sakura, slowly. "But that's impossible."

"What is?" Naruto asked.

"How so?" said Fen. "I think it's perfectly reasonable, actually."

"As do I," said Sai. "The Crusader—Fordragon, I think it was, told me that he had known a few shinobi in the past. I found it quite odd."

"And from what Kakashi-senpai has told me," said Yamato, "Akatsuki already knows of this world's existence. It's quite possible that they could have been behind it, or even that other shinobi could have discovered this place as well; and it doesn't have to be now, even. They could have come here ages ago, and been made a member of the Scourge since."

Naruto, who had been a little annoyed that nobody seemed to hear his questions, finally caught on. His eyes widened.

"You think a shinobi did that?"

Yamato's eyes slid to him, and he frowned a little in disapproval, as if bothered that Naruto had just understood what they were talking about. "It's possible, but also unlikely. But right now there seems to be absolutely no motivation behind the attack. It was sudden, quick, and efficient enough to make it disturbing. Sylvanas probably won't be pleased to hear this, either. It means that something's moving into our backyard and she won't like that. Good thing is that we'll probably know what it is soon enough, because she hates secrets as much as people calling her old. You'll probably hear from us soon enough."

Matthias came in a moment later. "The Undercity's comin' up in about half an hour, to let you know. We're not spendin' much time there, eh?"

"No," said Kira. She stood up, a note of command in her voice. "We're dropping Fenritt and Myrdraxxis off and then we're returning to immediately to Stormwind. We can't waste any more time. I have to get back to my people, and we have to tell the others about this." She turned and left the room, disappearing into the inner cabins. Kylia followed, and after a moment, so did Sakura. They reappeared only briefly to see Fen and Myrdraxxis off, and then returned to their cabin.

The return to Stormwind was far longer than Naruto had thought it would be. The days dragged on, and even when he could go outside, he found that flying was not as enjoyable with a heavy mind. He talked with Sai often during these times, and with Yamato. During one conversation, he brought up the attack he had attempted to come up with in the battle against Balnazzar.

"It is an interesting concept," said Yamato, frowning. "And now that you mention it, it seems to fit the technique perfectly. From what I understand, the Rasengan is just a technique that compresses _chakra_, and moulds it into a shape. From there, what naturally follows is the addition of an elemental factor, at least for most _jutsu_. What did it feel like?"

"It just felt, I dunno, wrong," Naruto said. "Like I was mixing two things that I knew didn't go together, but trying it anyways. Like trying to light a fire underwater, or something like that. I just felt wrong."

"I can't answer your question, in any case," said Yamato. "I don't know enough about the technique to be a good judgment, and I doubt you'd be able to tell me more, since you yourself seem to have little concept of _jutsu_ theory as a whole." Naruto slumped a little, thinking it was a reprimand, and when he saw this, Yamato corrected himself. "Forgive me—I don't mean to put you down. You don't seem to need _jutsu_ theory anyways, and I have the belief that teaching you about it more would just confuse you. That hasn't stopped you from learning about most _jutsu_, however, has it?"

"Yeah…" Naruto said. "Guess not." The subject didn't come up again.

Matthias let them off outside the gates, and as expected, there was a large group there to meet them. Benedictus stood at the forefront, and though he smiled when Kira leapt from the zeppelin and rushed over to him, it did not last, and when they had parted from the long embrace, Kira saw that his eyes were dark and clouded, and his face looked so very old. Kira's heart skipped, and she began to breath heavily.

"What is it?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"

Benedictus closed his eyes, and tried to smile, but the despair leaked through and it did not hold longer than a broken dam against a mighty river.

"It seems," he said, quietly, "that every time you return to this place, there is always despair waiting for you. Forgive me, Kira."

"What's wrong?" Kira said again, quicker this time, now trembling. "W-what's…?"

"King Magni is dead," said Benedictus. "The dwarves are soon to break off their alliance, and may even declare war on the orcs and trolls, and any who are their allies, for it appears that they are the ones who committed the crime."

* * *

"What are we supposed to do?"

It was much later, and the sky was blanketed in night, and the castle in an ever-deepening sense of despair. The entire room was restless and uneasy, and nobody but Benedictus seemed to be able to sit still. The old man sat in his chair in the Great Hall, watching as Naruto and Kira each dealt in their own way with the news. Naruto stood near the door, his eyes shadowed by his hair, his body shaking—not with grief, but with a palpable anger that filled the room like the heat from a vast fire. Tsuwabuki was pacing back and forth in front of the door, panting and snarling every so often—feeling Naruto's rage through their bond. Kira similarly paced, frantically back and forth in front of Benedictus, and her face kept changing from intense concentration to great sadness, and when the latter came about she stopped and began to quiver; but this lasted only a moment and then she went back to pacing, back to thinking. Sakura, Yamato, Kylia, Sai, and Kakashi all stood off to one side, looking on with concern, but also looking slightly out of place. They occasionally shifted in a way that looked like they might try to help, but never moved much farther then a slight shift of their posture. Sai's shifts were much more mechanical than the others, and it was hard to tell if he was doing it in imitation or simply getting used to the feeling of grief once more.

"What do we do?" Kira said again, aloud. "H-how," she faltered, and the look of despair returned. "How could this have happened?"

"The reason is obvious, of course," said Benedictus.

Naruto looked up at this. "What is it?"

"They want to destroy this alliance—whoever _they_ might be. They are so far doing a remarkable job as well, and I don't doubt that the situation in Ironforge plays a large role in their plan." Benedictus sighed, and sat back. He had reigned his own despair for his dead friend in lieu of the situation his death had put the alliance in, but it was becoming very difficult to keep his temper reigned.

"It's going to be chaos," said Kira. "How are we supposed to control it? How are we supposed to…?"

"For now, there is little we can do for Ironforge other than offer the support that they will likely not accept, as to them we are still allied with the perpetrators of this crime."

"But they didn't do it!" Naruto roared, starting forwards. "They didn't kill Magni-jiisan! Thrall or Vol'jin would've never done something like that!"

"Please refrain from yelling at me," said Benedictus. "I'm afraid that I'm as close as it comes to losing my temper and I do not want to do that, especially when I need my head clear. It does not matter if they did do it or not, because the dwarves will not accept any possibility otherwise. The overwhelming physical evidence is far more than enough for them to consider Thrall—nay, the entire Orcish population—responsible for this crime, and it does not help that he has conveniently returned to Orgrimmar to handle a supposedly 'urgent' matter that has been brought to his attention mere days before Magni's death, or that Vol'jin has become increasingly scarce in the past few days." Benedictus sucked in a fierce breath, and expelled it in a similarly violent manner. He stood.

"What matters now is the power vacuum that Magni's death has created. He had many close advisors, but he has no heirs and he was the last, in the eyes of his people, of the Bronzebeard line, which has ruled for generations. He had no cousins, no family of any kind, and it will no doubt be a perfect time for his former advisors to agree that in order to prevent searching the history records of the entire dwarfish race, it would be better to institute a policy of election—which is utterly foolish, in any case, because people have no idea what they want—or if things are truly so troubling, then coronation by combat. More to the point, however, no matter who becomes king, Ironforge will likely be torn apart before anything happens. When the mourning ends, they will begin to squabble and argue as to who is the best suited."

"How do you know that?" said Kira. "They were Magni's closest advisors, that doesn't mean—"

"Power, my dear girl," said Benedictus, "can make even the closest of brothers kill each other in the coldest blood, no matter what form it comes in."

Naruto's heart thumped particularly hard at that. He exchanged a very small look with Sakura, who looked as troubled as he felt.

"So we bring the real killers to justice," said Kira, desperately. "We find them and…"

"How do you propose to do that?" Benedictus said. "There is almost no evidence, and I have only briefly glanced at the body before it was taken by the dwarves and I was literally thrown from Ironforge, as if I were a stowaway on a boat bound to Hell. Even so, that will not help the situation. They will still argue…we'll only have a front row seat. You know perfectly well how stubborn those people are."

"SO WHAT DO WE DO?" Kira finally screamed, unable to stop herself as she rushed up dangerously close to her master, staring straight into his dulled golden eyes and his emotionless stare, her eyes now filled with tears. "W-what do we do?"

"Tell me," said Benedictus, softly. "What would you do?"

Kira stepped back, and wiped away the tears with a few violent brushes from her hand. She was quiet for a long time, though gradually her face began to grow harder and more determined. But even when she looked up, her stare was as clear and thin as new ice.

"We have to stop them from fighting over the throne," she said, finally. "But how…? They won't let us in, will they?"

"I highly doubt it, unless we can deliver to them Thrall and Vol'jin," said Benedictus. "Our best hope would be in securing a leader that we both trust for them, or at least a leader that they can rally behind for the time being, in addition to getting for them the real killers."

"Who?" said Kira. "Who could possibly take that position, that we trust and that they would accept?"

"A Bronzebeard."

Kira blinked, now totally confused. "What?"

Naruto had started forwards too. "I though you said that Magni-jiisan didn't have anybody left in his family?"

"That is not quite true," said Benedictus. "He has, at the very most, three left in his family—three who are of Bronzebeard lineage, and thus by Dwarven law, are considered to be eligible for the crown."

"So we…" Kira began, but then stopped. She stared at him with troubled eyes. "But there's a catch, isn't there?"

"Of course," said Benedictus. "The king's youngest brother, Brann, has not been seen on this earth for nearly a decade. His last known whereabouts were the Blasted Lands, to the south, and it would be far too troublesome—and dangerous, to search that hellish wasteland for any sign of that fool. And, in my opinion, he would not make a good king in the slightest, as he has far too much of a flair for adventure."

"And the other two?"

"Are alive, to my knowledge, but in an exceedingly difficult place to reach, and are even more difficult to bring back."

"Who are they?"

"King Magni's only daughter—Moira, and her young son, whose name is not yet known to us."

Kira's eyes grew wide. "I didn't know he had a daughter…"

"That is because he rarely brought the subject up around you and your father," said Benedictus. "It was probably easier for him to forget about her."

"What?" said Naruto, "Why?"

"Because she betrayed him," said Benedictus, "by falling in love with the Emperor of the Blackrock Mountains—Dagan Thaurissian of the Dark Iron Dwarves."

Naruto frowned at this, recognizing the "Dark Iron Dwarves" part of the name, but not remembering where. Kira, however, went white and let her shoulders droop a little, as if in defeat. But then her face grew concentrated once more, and for a moment there was silence in the room, save for the occasional creak of Benedictus shifting in his chair.

"That's are only choice, then, isn't it?" said Kira.

"To my knowledge, yes."

"But how are we going to convince her?" Kira asked, more to herself than Benedictus. The old man answered her anyways.

"There are two ways—we kidnap the child, or we by some divine miracle manage to convince that besotted fool to return and rule in her father's place."

"We will not kidnap him," said Kira, angrily. "It's either both or none."

"That's a foolish condition which will be nigh impossible to realize," said Benedictus immediately. "The child is the best chance, if anything. Though he is the child of the Dark Iron dwarves as well as Ironforge, he is young and can be raised according to his father's views; in other words, he can be groomed to be king, much as Magni and your father were."

"I won't separate them," said Kira.

"Stop being naïve, Kira," said Benedictus quietly. "There is no guarantee that she will be sane—or even alive—where she is right now, especially when Thaurissian is hardly the ruler of the Blackrock Mountains."

"But—"

Yamato now spoke up, from the side, his curiosity finally getting the best of him. He stepped forwards and coughed to announce his intention to speak. "Then there is another enemy to deal with?"

"A far worse one," said Benedictus, staring at the shinobi with piercing eyes. "A being that is possibly older than this very world, and certainly the oldest creature alive today—a fire elemental, or rather _the_ fire elemental, which is called Ragnaros."

"What is that?" Yamato asked.

"Something beyond our capacity to defeat," said Benedictus. "Which makes this all the more dangerous—we have heard little from the Blackrock Mountains since Ragnaros' rebirth, which took place near the end of the Third War, and so was destructive that it erased the lands around the Mountains, turning them into a boiling wasteland, a scar on the world. Moira's very life is in question at this point, because Magni had been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to do anything about it after he realized that she was not coming back."

"So," said Yamato, "in all reality, this could be just like the Stratholme trip—perhaps a trap, but more than likely a mission that will ultimately yield nothing."

"Yes," said Benedictus, heaving a great sigh. "Yes that is right. In all likelihood the dwarves will start their war, regardless of the true killers being found or not. In any case, they will quickly become a burden on the alliance, unless they have a leader."

"But as you said," Kakashi spoke up in his quiet, frank voice. "If this child is retrieved, how long will it take for him to come of age? Years?"

"Yes," said Benedictus, "but what the dwarves need is unity, and this child can be that. Magni's advisors can serve as the true power, and if we manage to bring the true killers to light, they will allow us to aid them as well. They are not cruel people. They are ambitious, but they will yield to their ancient laws, and they did love Magni. But they are stubborn as mules and will not change their views unless the evidence is shoved in their faces with considerable force."

"This entire plan seems completely subjective at this point," said Kakashi.

"It is the best I can come up with," Benedictus snapped. "Come up with a better one if you can manage."

Kira glanced uneasily between her master and Kakashi, who did not back away, and merely gazed blankly at the old man before shrugging, and turning to Kira.

"So what are your orders?"

Kira blinked. "Orders?"

"Tsunade-sama told us to remain here, and that we were to take any order you might give us," said Kakashi. "That includes the remaining teams of ninja. We are, after all, here to aid you in any way possible, and this seems like the perfect situation for us to handle. You have upwards of four teams of shinobi at your service—it would be quite foolish not to use them properly, you know." He used the same smile he had once used to charm his students into forgiving his constant tardiness, and Kira felt she had to smile back, if even a little.

"Okay," she said. "Then let's gather the others. We have to do this as soon as possible. There are two missions: find Magni Bronzebeard's daughter and grandson, and return to them to Stormwind…" She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes very briefly, to stop the last two tears from falling.

"…And find the true murderers of Magni Bronzebeard, and make sure that they pay for what they have done."

* * *

"So you're back, eh, Tsunade?"

"What's the problem?" Tsunade immediately snapped when she came in, finding the sight of Jiraiya sitting with his legs propped up on her desk incredibly irritating, and making it known by hurtling him a glare that could have vaporized stone. He quickly sat up, and began fiddling with his hands, though his smirk hadn't faltered.

"Did I say it was a problem?" he asked. "I said it was urgent and needed your attention, but it is far from a problem."

"Then what is it?"

"Two weeks ago," he said, "when you were still gone, a very interesting thing happened…something that I don't believe you'll quite believe. It came very suddenly and was completely shocking to almost everybody, though it's a damn good thing we were the closest ones and were able to get to it first, all things considering, though to tell you the truth, we weren't that close at all, and it's a good thing we're allies with the coastal villages. I don't think anybody else would be as…_tolerant_…as we are."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tsunade had just crossed a desert and a forest, in near recording timing, to be back here, and she wasn't in the mood for Jiraiya's annoying personality. She cracked her knuckles, and Jiraiya's smile fell from his face in a blink.

"Well," he said, clearing his throat. "It'd be better to introduce you, actually." He turned, and nodded towards the door. "Oi! You can come in, now."

The door opened, and Tsunade's frustration and anger slid away, as the figure entered the room, and gave her a deep bow, which still managed to come up to her chin.

Jiraiya grinned at the look of pure shock on her face. She looked at him then, in amazement and growing delight, and he nodded.

"Yeah. I though so too."

* * *

Done. Quite liked the chapter, though I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it.

Nothing much else to say—Magni's death was a much debated event in my head, but I realized he had to go if I was to bring in the next set of villains, and set up for the final arcs.

By the way, I made a mistake--Magni doesn't have any sons. He has two brothers, one of whom is dead. I was mistaken--forgive me. It has been corrected.

See you then!

General Grievous


	22. Blackrock

_Disclaimer: I'd rather not own Naruto or World of Warcraft…because then…well, I don't know, it'd be rather pointless, wouldn't it? I mean, it wouldn't be a fanfiction any longer, would it? It'd be the real thing. Who wants to read that?_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

"You're giving me a choice?" Naruto asked, blinking. 

"Of course," said Kira, frowning at him. "Besides, you know better where you would do best, right?"

Naruto nodded a little. "To tell you the truth, then, I wanna go after Magni-jiisan's killers. I don't know if that's where I'm suited best, but it's what I want more than anything."

"Which is why he shouldn't choose," said Kakashi, sighing as he leaned against the wall. "Naruto always has a problem acting on emotion, and needs to learn how to put that aside and use his own best judgment. We don't have time to teach him that, so you'll have to choose for him, Kira-sama."

Kira bit her lip, and looked at the others. Sakura met her stare squarely, and Sai with a smile. Each of the other shinobi nodded in turn or smiled in some way to show that whatever she did decide, they would follow it without question. But she didn't want that.

"I don't know any of you," she said, finally. "Not only personally, but I don't know anything about your specific skills or anything like that. How am I supposed to choose?"

"Start with Naruto," said Kakashi. "I'll fill in the rest. Where do you think he should go?"

She frowned, and was silent for a few moments, before saying, "To find Magni's killers."

"Why?"

"Because of his determination," she said. "I think he has the power and the will to find those that did this and bring them to justice—and it doesn't matter that he doesn't distance himself from his emotions…he needs them to do this, I think. The fact is, the dwarves may not accept it even if the true killers are captured—they need someone they can trust, someone that King Magni trusted. Naruto's sword," she said pointing to the weapon that hung from Naruto's belt, far below his blushing face. "Is that proof."

"On the other hand," Kakashi said, "somebody who knew King Magni may be needed to convince Moira-sama to return, is that not so? Perhaps the only thing that may convince her is that attachment she once had to her father."

Kira opened her mouth, and then closed it again, without speaking. She closed her eyes and her brow knitted in concentration as she considered what to do.

"Kakashi."

Kakashi threw a lazy look at Gai, who now stood before him, frowning. The goofy man with the bowl-cut then grinned at him, and from some hidden light source emanated a glittering sparkle that could have lit even the darkest rooms. He thrust up a hand, with his thumb extended, making Lee and Naruto gasp in unison at the appearance of the most elegant and heart-warming "Nice-Guy" pose either of them could have even dreamed of. Of course, it made everyone else in the room stare in detached disgust, as if at a hideous accident, unable to look away.

"Kakashi," he said again. "Let her choose, or better yet, let them choose. They know best what they can do…who are we to say otherwise?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Because that's how it's been done for the entirety of our shinobi careers, and long before that…but whatever you say, Gai." He looked at Kira. "Is that alright with you, Kira-sama?"

Kira quickly nodded, looking slightly relieved, though she tried to keep it hidden behind her regal mask. She glanced at the other shinobi, and waited for them to speak up.

"If that's the case," said Shikamaru, after a moment. "Then my team…" he glanced at Asuma, who merely nodded, "…will try to retrieve Moira-sama and her son, if that is alright."

"Your reasons are…?" asked Kakashi.

"Ino's abilities are best suited for infiltration," Shikamaru said, calmly. "So are mine, and Chouji's for if we get into a real fight. We also work well together, know each other's weaknesses and strengths, and that's more important than anything isn't it?"

"Yes," said Kakashi, nodding.

"My team, too," said Neji. He spoke softly, but his voice was deep and strong so it carried easily across the room. "Are best suited for this type of duty. It is hopeless to assume that we'll get in and out of there unscathed, so what we need is a group that can move quickly and can defend sufficiently when our presence is revealed, in addition to being able to sneak in without causing much of a disturbance."

"I quite agree," said Gai, grinning widely. "And these two teams provide both, and they are all filled with the power of _youth_ after all!" He pumped a fist in the air, and flashed everyone another glittering smile. "Moira-sama will be unable to refuse that!"

Kira nodded. She looked over each of them in turn, and saw no problems with it. "Can you do this duty?" she felt compelled to ask, still slightly nervous—not of their ability, but of the seriousness of this task, and what could happen if it went awry.

"Of course," said Shikamaru. He grinned at her, lazily. "Don't worry about it, _hime-sama_, we'll bring them back."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Good," she said, with a sort of finality. She turned to the remaining shinobi. "Then you all will…"

"Not all," said Kakashi, shaking his head. "We can only allow one group, at best, to go after the killers."

"What! Why?"

"Because protecting you is an as important as the other two missions," said Kakashi. "So one group must stay here. It can be either, since we both have the same tracking capabilities."

"Don't compare me to those dogs, Kakashi-san," said Kiba, rubbing his nose and sniffing haughtily. "Mine's way better."

"Ah," said Kakashi. "So it would seem that they have better tracking than we do…."

Kira, however, wasn't listening. Her eyes were Kurenai, where she stood beside Asuma in the back of her group. She was biting her lip, and though her face remained perfectly blank, she seemed uneasy. Asuma continually glanced at her in a worried manner, and would then look back to Kira, but never directly meet her eyes.

"Kurenai-san's group will stay," she said. She resisted the urge to as them if this was alright.

Kiba looked crushed, sagging forwards, but behind him Kurenai seemed relieved, and so did Asuma. Kira turned then to Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura, Sai and Yamato. "You all will go in search for the killers, then?"

"Yes," said Kakashi. He was smiling beneath his mask.

"Very well." Benedictus stood as he said this, and gazed around the room. "Then it's time to prepare. Naruto, call Matthias—he shouldn't have gotten too far away, and Kira, send someone into the town to gather supplies—lots of water and heavy fire-protective gear, and then someone to the archives for a map of the Blackrock Mountains as they are now." They all nodded, even as Benedictus started for the door. "Kira, inform the retrieval group of the dangers of the Blackrock Mountains. I want the other group to come with me, so that I might provide some suggestions on what to do."

"That's great," said Kakashi. "Thank you."

The old man huffed. "You won't go anywhere without it. Let's go."

With a final parting glance, Naruto left Kira to the others, while he, Tsuwabuki, Sakura, Sai, Yamato and Kakashi followed Benedictus from the room, and down the cold, dark hallway.

* * *

"You must understand the danger you are heading into…" Kira began, taking the seat that Benedictus had vacated, and gesturing the others to do the same. They all found spots at the circular table, feeling a little unnerved by its grandeur (Kiba particularly, as he had the fortune of sitting in Cairne's chair, which was so large that he looked like a child in comparison). "There's a lot about this world that you don't know, and I can't say much other than what I've learned from books and Benedictus' lectures, but it will still help you to assess the danger that you are going to be heading into…" she took a breath, "and the extreme caution that you'll have to exercise." 

Gai chuckled. "You sound like an adult, Kira-sama, so I will address you as one. We have faced many dangers in the past, and indeed, I must say, far more than you have." His grin faded into solemnity. "You do not need to tell us of caution, because we exercise it on every mission."

She nodded, feeling a little ashamed of herself. "You're right. But as I said, there are far worse things than human evils in this world. You're about to go very close to one of them." She paused for a second, staring at the dark wood of the table, as she dredged up everything she knew about the Blackrock Mountains.

"The creature that rules the Blackrock Mountains is not an earthly creature. It's one of the most powerful beings to have ever existed—it's the original elemental of fire, and so it's believed that its existence in this world brought that element to us. However, just like fire itself, this being is unpredictable and incredibly dangerous, and worse, if given the chance, it would consume everything in its path until there was nothing left. It's a force of nature. It was sealed away thousands of years ago, before humankind even existed, and returned during the end of the War of Three Hammers, summoned by the ancestor of the current Emperor in an effort to destroy the armies of Ironforge that were about to assault the Dark Iron kingdom. Since then, it has resided in the depths of the Blackrock Mountains, and nothing since has been heard."

"Why?"

Kira looked across the table at Shikamaru. "Pardon?"

"You said it yourself," he said, "it's a force of nature. Why can't it do what its meant to do? Attack and destroy everything? Why is it still there?"

"I don't know," she Kira. "Nobody really does—nobody has been close enough to figure that out. However, the theory is—and by theory I mean what master Benedictus believes—is that it has not been fully released, and is chained to the Blackrock Mountains, not unlike how a normal elemental is sometimes bound to the duty of a mage."

"The golden bracelets…" Shino said aloud.

Kira blinked at him. "Yes. How did you know?"

"We fought some against Akatsuk," Kiba said. "Dunno how they were made though, it was pretty wierd.

Kira nodded, and went on. "Yes, it's usually a sort of bracelet. It's likely that what binds Ragnaros is merely the remnants of the much stronger seal that kept it down there. No doubt, it is attempting to break that seal, which might be well impossible, since it was placed there by the Titans themselves…"

"The who?" Ino spoke up. "Titans?"

"The creators of this world," said Kira. "Supposedly," she added.

"So this guy was so powerful that even these gods couldn't kill him, and had to seal him away, right?" Shikamaru said, frowning.

"Yes."

"Crap," said Asuma, blowing a ring of smoke into the air. "That's tough. How are we supposed to contend with that?"

"You don't fight with him," said Kira. "Though the Dark Iron dwarves are essentially under its control, it does not necessarily treat them any different from how it would treat humans—most likely with the same uncaring apathy you'd look at a insect with."

Kiba and Hinata, standing near the door with Kurenai, flinched at that and looked at their friend Shino, though he appeared unmoved by the slight.

"It most likely doesn't use them for anything other than manual labor. That means that you won't likely have to deal with anything like it in your journey, and you'll only have to contend with the Dark Iron dwarves." She paused again, and took a few breaths. "That said, there are things you should know about them as well.

"I'm told that their greatest ability are their weapons—all made of dark iron, which is not only very durable, but when made into weapons, can burn as well as cut. I've never seen any myself…it can only be mined in the Blackrock Mountains. They also, I'm told, have an affinity for fire elemental _jutsu_."

"Which is fine," said Gai, nodding. "There aren't any fire _jutsu _users in this group, so we'll have no problems there."

"Good," she said. "I don't think I can tell you much else—you'll have to wait until Benedictus returns for that. The supplies should be arriving soon, as well, so when they get here…?"

"We'll leave," said Gai, nodding to the rest. "All of you get ready. I'll go meet up with Kakashi and Benedictus-sama, and get the information we need." He stood. "Where are they?"

"In the chapel, I imagine," said Kira. "Kylia, could you lead him there?"

Kylia nodded quickly, and gestured for Gai to follow.

"Ah, but before I go…" Gai turned and stuck out a thumb at Kira, who blinked at it. It looked familiar, but she couldn't think of anyone she knew that was that weird…unless….

She sighed. Unless you counted Naruto.

"Do not worry, _hime_-sama," he said, and flashed one of his sparkling grins, which succeeded in its job in making her smile as well, but it was a half-hearted, rather forced smile that hardly disguised the unease caused by Gai's.

"We are Konoha-nin," Gai said, "and we do not fail in such important missions. You have also done well, in choosing this team."

She flushed. "I didn't choose anybody…"

"Ah," he said, "but you did the next best thing—you let them choose."

* * *

Inside the chapel—lit by only a small, flickering candle on the altar in front—Benedictus sat before Naruto, Kakashi, Sakura, Sai and Yamato. His face was grim and seemed even more so in the dim light, with the heavy shadows cast about his face, and he seemed very, very old as he spoke, no louder than a whisper. 

"I do not plan for this to take long—I would like you get on the trail of the killers as soon as possible. I merely have some suggestions on what you should do first." He glanced back towards the door, as if waiting for someone to come in. "Unfortunately, at this time, I have only limited access to the sources that may confirm my suspicions. Nevertheless, I can tell you a few things about Magni's death that bothers me considerably.

"First is the timing of his death. You could look at it being no more than a chance opportunity, but by looking closer, you can see that it was more than the perfect chance, especially for the intended effect. Just days before his death, I discussed with Magni his troubling relationship with the other leaders."

Naruto frowned. "What?"

"Come now," Benedictus said, "you cannot expect Magni to have forgiven them, can you? They caused the deaths of many of his people, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual on their end. Though they managed to put it aside, they still hold a fierce distrust of each other in all of their hearts—something that not even your words can mend, Naruto."

Naruto lowered his eyes, but he gave a slight nod.

"Nevertheless, the timing was _too_ perfect—how did they know when to strike? Did they intercept a message from Magni? Moreover, how did they get in? The tram tunnels do not open save for in Stormwind, Ironforge and most recently, Gnomeregan. There is little way they could get in, short of building an entirely new entrance—which seems a little impractical. They knew exactly when to strike, catching Magni at his lowest in all senses of the word. They attacked after a meeting with his greatest enemies—and knew that he would be at his lowest."

"What makes you say that?" Kakashi said, raising an eyebrow.

"Because of the time and place of his death!" Benedictus snapped. His face then softened, and he sighed. "But that is only a suspicion, at this point, and I refuse to pursue that subject any farther without more information…forgive me." He rubbed his eyes tiredly, and continued. "The second oddity, and indeed the most profound, is of course, the manner of his death."

Benedictus was silent for another moment, as he stroked his beard and recalled the memory. "As I said…I only saw Magni's body briefly, before it was taken away, and they noticed I had come. I suppose they were all far too shocked themselves, so much so that I don't think they noticed anything that I was able to glean from the situation—they have thick heads, that bunch." He grinned wryly at some memory, and then shook himself. "The first is that most of the visible wounds were concentrated around his head and face—all done by something blunt, such as a fist or a hammer. There were no cuts…sorry, that isn't quite right, there was one cut—a mere scratch, just below his right eye. So small that it could only have bled for a mere second, and he probably didn't even feel it. But the more important thing was that his death wound was not situated on his face, which was odd, considering the number of blows concentrated there."

"How do you know?" Sakura asked, who was frowning as well.

"Two reasons," said Benedictus. "The first is that dwarf skulls are harder than most rocks, and could even take a direct blow from a sword and have more damage done to the sword than their head. The second is that the wound was clearly on his body—given the amount of blood."

"Why note the scratch, then?" Sakura asked.

"Merely an observation," he said, calmly. "Which I hope will amount to nothing. But the wounds on his body, as it is, are the most peculiar feature of his death."

He paused again, as Sakura knit her brow and Naruto leaned forwards in anticipation, while Kakashi, Yamato, and Sai (who was trying to rectify it), remained immobile and expressionless.

"As I said, his body sustained heavy damage—all puncture or slashing wounds, I suspect, save for one on his chest, where the plate was dented inwards, no doubt struck by the same force that ravaged his head. But that wasn't the peculiar part—it was the fact that none of the wounds were visible."

"What?" Naruto said, leaning back. "How can you see them but have them be…?"

Benedictus leveled a stare at him. "The wounds were not visible through his armor. In fact, aside from that one dent and a few others, there was no damage to his armor at all. Yet, I knew there were wounds there because of the blood that had spilled out the sides of his armor—a copious amount, showing that the wound that had done him in was likely a wound to his heart, where there is the most blood; and yet, the armor was completely intact, and there is no way they could slip a weapon in between Dwarfish-made plate mail."

"How is that possible?" Kakashi said this more to himself, than to Benedictus, but the old man answered him anyways.

"I don't know. Not for certain, at least. I have a slight suspicion, but there is no good telling it to you now." He wiped his head with his sleeve, and leaned back in his chair, sighing. "The final observation was curious, but it tells me more about our enemies than the others. It seems that despite their skill at infiltrating and their apparent cleverness, they are not above looting their enemies' bodies."

He let that sink in. "Magni wore rings—not on his fingers, but in his beard. They were once his daughter's, and he wore them in remembrance of her before her betrayal. But, they were not there, nor anywhere in the immediate vicinity."

"So they're common criminals," said Sakura. "They have to be under orders from someone else—they should've known not to loot the bodies, especially if they were attempting such a grand ruse."

"Yes," said Benedictus. "That is my belief, too." He stared hard at the ground, and began scratching his beard. "Though they need not be hired at all. They could simply be stupid, or exceptionally greedy, assassins, who planned that the dwarves would be so devastated by King Magni's death that they would not notice the missing jewelry."

"So what does this tell us?" Yamato asked, calmly. "With all of this, what do we do?"

"I have suggestions, as I said," Benedictus said. "The first is simple—you investigate as to how they entered the city. Depending on where they entered will tell us a lot about their current location and their path of travel—and if they had any possible help, as well. It is unlikely that they came from here, and Gnomeregan is exceptionally difficult to enter at this point, so I am of the belief of a new shaft entirely, or, if it comes to it, entering from Ironforge itself…"

"Then…" Naruto said, "…you think Magni-jiisan was betrayed?"

"I won't go down that road, not yet," said Benedictus. "There is no need to." He paused. "The second suggestion, once you have found out that…I'm assuming that those nin-dogs of yours can help?"

Kakashi nodded.

'_I, as well.'_

Naruto looked at her. "No, you're staying here."

The fox looked up at him, and cocked her head to the side in a questioning manner. '_Oh? Why am I to be deprived of being by your side again?'_

"'Cause you're the best communication I got with this place," Naruto said. "It'll be better if you stay here so we can relay messages and things like that."

'_You just like fighting by yourself," _she said. '_But I cannot complain, nor can I say that fighting alone is preferable to me as well.'_

"Besides," Naruto said. "It's not like we can't talk or anything."

Tsuwabuki nodded, and lowered her head to the ground again.

Benedictus cleared his throat. "As I said, once that information has been found, you will go with Matthias up north, to Hillsbrad."

Kakashi frowned. "Why?"

"There was an attack there, not long ago," Benedictus said, "on the Ravenholdt Manor, the headquarters of the Ravenholdt Assassin's guild—something Naruto no doubt has heard of before."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. I think Myrdraxxis is a member, or something—Fen told me about it briefly when I was up there once."

"There are few rogues who are not a part of it," said Benedictus. "Regardless, it has been laid waste to, and from the reports, there are some startling similarities to Magni's death. All of them were killed by either brutalization, or were assailed by wounds beneath their clothes, as if they had been attacked from within, and all of them were looted of their valuables. There was only one survivor, an orc named Master Kang, who is now in Southshore and is apparently in a coma. Your job will be to investigate the ruins—see what you can glean from them, and then attempt to wake up this Kang, and hopefully get some information from him."

"How do we wake someone up that's in a coma?" Yamato asked. "Even medical _ninjutsu_ has its limits."

"This girl is talented, I'm told," said Benedictus, jabbing a finger at Sakura. "She'll figure it out—she'll be better than any healer we have up there, in any case."

Kakashi nodded, and then stood. "So that's it, then? We have our mission. There's no point in wasting any more time."

"Too right," said Benedictus. "I will remain here, with Kira and Tyrande—"

"Oi," said Naruto, perking up, "Tyrande is here?"

"Yes," said Benedictus. "But you have no time to speak with her. Save it for when you come back." He ignored Naruto's pout, and instead focused on getting out of his chair, which appeared to be very difficult. He now knew why Magni had such trouble with being old, and Benedictus never felt it more than at these times.

"Fine," said Kakashi, "we will…"

The door creaked, and flew open.

"Oho! What a nice room this is!"

Gai stepped into the room, followed by an increasingly embarrassed Kylia. Naruto and Sakura sighed, as did Kakashi, who shook his head and started towards the door.

"Why'd you come here, Gai?" he asked.

"Information!" said Gai. "But if you are…?"

"We're done," said Kakashi. "I'll tell Asuma the plan—we'll be gone before you get back, I suspect."

"Very good, very good," said Gai, nodding a few times. "Take care, Kakashi! I'm still one up on you, so you'd better get back in your game, before we next meet!"

Kakashi nodded, lazily. "Right. You be sure to come back, too, Gai."

"Of course," the Azure Beast of Konoha said, grinning. "There's no point in worrying about that!"

Kakashi nodded, and passed through the door into the hallway, with the others in tow, who said goodbye to Gai in their own ways. Kylia bowed to both of them, and shut the door, leaving Gai and Benedictus alone, the former with a slowly fading grin in response to the latter's darkening face.

* * *

Gai returned some time later with Benedictus—and neither looked particularly happy, though that changed when Gai saw Lee—after Naruto and the others had come and gone, saying their goodbyes and good lucks, before disappearing into the depths of the castle. Kira stayed to oversee the coming of the supplies and the map, which was carried by Archivist Sevenius Coutrend himself. The caustic man swept in and deposited the wrinkled old map in Benedictus' hands, and did not linger, when Benedictus informed him of the information that was needed. 

"Religions?" Coutrend sniffed, frowning. "Why would you need such a thing now?"

"Humor me," Benedictus snapped. "I am old and feeble, and I'm losing my mind and I have a wish to read of the ancient teachings of the past so that I may wonder where I went wrong in life."

"Your wit is as sharp as ever, though," Coutrend said, before sweeping from the room like a passing shadow. Benedictus grumbled, and unfurled the map, laying it down on the table. It was easy to make out, despite the obvious wear and tear, which it more than likely suffered during its creation by the fumbling Brann Bronzebeard of the Explorer's League.

"Here," he said, pointing to a set of Dwarfish runes written next to a line of well-drawn mountains. "There lies the entrance to the Blackrock Depths, where Moira likely lives, or rather, is kept. There is only one entrance, and I have no doubt that it's heavily guarded."

"Leave that to us," said Shikamaru. Benedictus nodded, stepped back, and allowed Shikamaru to see the map properly for a moment. The boy stared at it for only a brief time before rolling it up and tucking it into his backpack. "Thanks."

Benedictus merely shrugged, and looked at Kira. "I'd like to speak with you, as soon as you're finished here."

"Of course," Kira said, nodding as he left. She then turned to the shinobi, who were all more or less prepared for their journey. Their packs were laden with food, but far more water, as well as a scroll which would teach them a _jutsu_ that would allow them to produce ample amounts of both should they need to do so. Despite the later hour, they all looked alert and ready to act at her word.

"Are you all ready?" They all nodded, more or less, so she nodded, and led them out of the Great Hall, and to the steps of the castle. The sky was a brilliant dark blue, as the moon was almost full and the sky was peppered with stars. She waited until they were all out, standing before her on the steps, to speak further.

"I can't thank you enough for what you're doing," she began, softly. "Risking your lives to do this is—"

"All in a day's work for us, Kira-sama," Gai said, saluting. "You need not thank us."

"I have to," she said. "Because I know you're doing it more than out of duty. So please accept my thanks, and my wishes that your mission will both be a success and you will all return here safely." She bowed almost embarrassingly low to people of their status, but she had never cared for that sort of thing and never would. They did care, however, and flushed at her praise (and the boys did get a chance to look down her shirt, though it earned them a punch from either Ino or Tenten. Kiba and Shino, standing behind Kira, got the sudden feeling that they had missed out on something amazing, as well).

"We'll come back," Shikamaru said, trying not to blush as the image of her curvaceous chest locked itself firmly in his mind, "If only to see that Naruto doesn't get into any more trouble."

"Yeah," Ino said, massaging her knuckles from where she had punched Lee, who was closest to her. "He constantly needs looking after—he goes away for a few months and ends up in a new world. He'll probably be half a continent away by the time we step out of this city." She grinned at her. "But don't worry about it. Like you said—this isn't just because of our duty, you know. We want to make this work as much as Naruto does, I'll have you know. This place is great!"

The others agreed in nods and grunts of affirmations (the grunts mainly from the still flesh-shocked boys), while Kira smiled widely at their words. She was finding less and less cause for worry as she stared into their confident smiles and determined eyes, because she found that they were the same as his when he had left for the first time, nearly two years prior.

"Thank you," she said again.

They didn't respond this time, instead turning and walking down the path towards the gate. They disappeared from sight before they reached it, even as Kira turned back and strode with determined steps back into the castle, Team Kurenai and Tsuwabuki in tow, to a conversation she knew would be a long time coming.

* * *

It took them mere moments to leave the city through the Northern Gate, where they stopped to check the map. They would head north, into the mountains, which would lead them well into the Burning Steppes, southeast of the Blackrock mountain range. They all decided it would not only give them ample time to assess the layout of the land, but it would give them some idea of the defenses the Dark Iron dwarves possessed, given that they would be well into their territory as soon as they entered the mountains. The map revealed only one path that led through them, and though they couldn't read what was said about it, the path didn't look particularly easy, as it wound and bent around the largest mountains. It would probably take them several days to get through, at best. 

"We'll run to the base of the mountains," said Shikamaru, calmly. "Not at full speed, but fast enough so that we don't lose much time. It'll probably take us…" he checked the map, "two days."

"Simple enough," Asuma said, stamping out a cigarette and fishing for another, before deciding that he would probably need them for the trip, and needed to conserve.

"Say goodbye to Kurenai-sensei, Asuma-sensei?" Ino asked, her attention drawn to him by this unusual action.

"Yeah," he said, "why?"

"Just wondering," she said, grinning. "Secondhand smoke is bad, you know. It just reminded me."

"Thanks," he said, looking away. "I'll remember that."

Both Shikamaru and Chouji stared at Ino strangely, but decided not to comment, and none of Gai's team seemed to be listening. Neji, in fact, was staring into the trees, a frown on his face.

"There is someone coming," he said, softly. "I can't see much in the darkness-only their outline, and their _chakra_ system…" he frowned. "But it is strong."

Gai glanced at him. He then looked at the rest of the team, motioning for them to stay back. He stepped forwards, and called out into the night:

"Who are you?"

"He's stopped," Neji said, softly.

"Who are _yeh?"_ The voice called, thick and rumbling like a small rockslide.

"I asked you first!"

"Then to hell wit ye!"

Gai fell into his trademark Leaf-nin taijutsu stance, his eyes becoming glittering onyx slits at the presumed threat. The other shinobi reacted in a similar fashion, and held their ground as the figure approached. It clanked as it walked, and made no attempt to conceal itself in the darkness, and even let out an offended snort at their reactions.

"Calm down, ye jittery little bairns! I ain't yer enemy—just th' opposite in fact."

Gai lowered his guard, and squinted through the darkness—the figure was short and squat, but was dressed in shiny silver mail and held a similarly polished hammer, all of which would have been quite impressive had there been more light. It had a long, black beard and hardened blue eyes like sapphires, imbedded in a grey, scrunched face that looked like it was made of granite, and despite its small stature, the creature gave off an impressive presence that made it appear twice its size.

"A dwarf!" Lee shouted.

"Aye!" the dwarf snapped, flashing a dark look at Lee. "A dwarf! An' look there! A human!" He pointed at Lee, looking falsely surprised; Lee drew back, and looked contrite.

Asuma raised an eyebrow at the action.

"What's a dwarf doing here, in this situation?" he asked, a little softly. "Curious…"

"So ye know?" the dwarf said. "Then there's nothin' curious about it. Not all o' us 'r as convinced as the 'igher ups that King Magni was done in by who they say 'e was. Doesn't seem right—an' I thought I'd come and see fer meself what you guys are doin' about it."

"You must be mistaking us for someone else," said Neji, who was just beginning to relax, in seeing that they were not threatened. "We are not…"

"Yeh dress like 'e did. Got the same weapons as 'e does. " The dwarf pointed at Neji's kunai holster. "Yer from the same place as Naruto, eh?"

Gai's considerably large eyebrows went up considerably high on his forehead. "Oh! You know Naruto-kun?"

"'Course!" the dwarf said. "One o' me best mates, 'e is. We killed a dragon together," he gestured to his back, where a long, fluttering leather cloak hung. "Ere's the proof! Dragon scale cloak! 'Nuff about that, though, where is 'e?"

"On his own mission," said Gai, chuckling. "As we must be going as well."

"Where you off to?"

"The Blackrock Mountains," said Gai, grinning in a way that showed he didn't understand what he was grinning about. "To bring back your Queen and future king!"

The dwarf blinked. "Wha'?"

"To return Lady Moira," Tenten, from just beside Gai. "And her son, so that they can inherit the throne."

The dwarf stared at her, and then at Gai, and then at the rest of them. "Just the lot o' yeh?"

"Of course!" Gai bellowed, raising a fist into the air. "We are shinobi of Konoha—that is all it will take!"

"Can be damn sure that all o' ye will die afore you get within ten miles o' that 'ellhole," the dwarf said, rolling his eyes. "Yeh got no idea o' the dangers that place 'olds."

"We have some," said Shikamaru, walking forwards, and crossing his arms.

"By someone tha's been there?"

"No…" Shikamaru conceded.

"Then yeh got no idea." He glanced back towards the city, frowning. "I'd like ta talk ta Naruto, but ye say 'e's gone?"

"Yes," said Shikamaru.

"Then I'll go wit yeh." He glanced at everyone's surprised, and indeed, slightly doubtful looks. He grinned. "Heh, don' gimme that! I won't slow ye down, and this is a bit more relevant to me than ta you, eh? Tell me the whole story, and we'll get on our way."

"You're coming?" said Shikamaru. "We don't even know your name!"

"Undrig, lad," the dwarf said, grinning. "Pleased ta meet ya! Now, like I said, get talkin', and someone send a bird or somethin' back there to tell 'em that I'm goin' with you. Bet the princess'll be a bit 'appier knowin' that not all dwarves 'ave gone off the deep end!"

* * *

They reached the mountains a day and a half later, and slowed their pace to a walk. As Shikamaru had thought, the path they chose was anything but easy—it was hardly a path, and they consistently found themselves losing it, almost to the point where Shikamaru began to doubt whether the path drawn was truly a path at all. 

"Yer right about that," Undrig said, observing the map after they lost track of where they were for the fifth time that day, the second since they had entered the area. "Says 'ere," he pointed at the runes marked next to it, "that yer only supposed to follow a general direction—where the sky is burnt, and it it'll generally take ye around a lot o' the bigger mountains."

"This mapmaker wasn't terribly bright, was he?" Shikamaru said, sighing.

"'E was brilliant," said Undrig, shaking his head, "but wasn't the best mapmaker, that's fer sure. Could get 'imself lost inna bathroom if 'e tried, and I'm not talkin' even 'bout the ones they got at the palace—an outhouse would pose a challenge fer that bloke. Good thing 'e had a bunch o' others with 'im, or I doubt we could trust this map at all." He glanced at the sky, which was quickly darkening, though he could see black clouds creeping like weeds above the mountains closest to them, and knew that in two days that would be all they saw of the sky. He could already smell the sulfur.

"But, 'e's got a point. Not much to do than to find the best route fer ourselves, eh?"

"Will there be any guards near the entrance to the Steppes?"

"Shouldna be," Undrig said. "Not too many, anyways. A group this small, and as quick as ye all are, could probably get by them easy."

Shikamaru nodded, and turned back to Asuma and Gai, who had been listening closely. It had long been decided, due to his gift for strategy, that Shikamaru would be the one who told them where to go, unless either Gai or Asuma had a better plan. "We'll stick to one group, then, until we reach the Steppes proper. Then we'll probably split."

"Is splitting up a good idea?" Ino called from where she was resting, on a small outcropping ten feet above everyone else, where she was admiring the view. "We only have one map."

"If we do," said Shikamaru, "it'll be when we're in sight of our target. As it stands, we're too big of a group to go unnoticed as a singular entity. If we break up into smaller groups, that gives us more ways to enter efficiently and once inside, a more effective way of searching."

"How do we keep in contact?" Neji asked. "Should that occur?"

"I..." Shikamaru began, but Undrig, to his relief, cut him off.

"Easy," the dwarf said. "I'll spend then next few days makin' them, but it shouldna be too 'ard."

"What are they?" Neji asked.

"Communication Stones," Undrig said, as he began to scan the ground for appropriate size rocks, picking up a few and testing them with a couple of throws, and few hand exchanges, and finally by putting them in his mouth and spitting them out. Apparently he had judged well, because he set them aside and began searching for more, doing the same thing as he found them.

"What are those?" Ino asked, hopping off her perch and landing almost soundlessly beside Shikamaru, a faint look of disgust on her face when she realized she'd have to touch something that had been in Undrig's mouth.

"Our answer to Gnomish electronics," said Undrig. "Just stones with runes carved in 'em, makes us able to talk ta' each other over a short distance of about 20 miles. Only problem is that they run outta power fast, but I don't expect we'll be in there fer long, eh?"

Shikamaru nodded, relieved that the communication problem had been solved. It had been nagging him for some time, and though he had prepared several alternatives, none of them beat this. He nodded.

Throughout the journey, the pass through the mountains remained constant in its appearance of looking nothing like a pass. They followed the map's instructions, always looking to the ever-growing roof of black clouds that began to crumble and deposit a layer of dark fog upon them, which burned their eyes and filled their noses with the scent of rotten eggs and burning metal, and spewed ash at them in a constant snowfall that soon piled up to knee-height, making it almost impossible to walk. Though the first time the ashfall began, they sought shelter, they had since donned their fireproof hooded cloaks, and now slogged through the infernal wonderland, a fair number of them wishing for Naruto's goggles.

The air didn't clear as the exited the mountains, which came four days after they had entered, leading to the rim of a gigantic crater. On two opposite ends of the crater were large, black towers that flew black flags with a hideous red-orange, horned skull, and within it were several large wooden structures, including a crane, a conveyer belt that was moving nothing but large, uncut stones, and a large drill that was currently not in use. Numerous little black tents dotted the crater, with tiny black figures that Undrig identified as the populace of the area—the Dark Iron Dwarves.

"Didn' realize they mined this close," Undrig said. They remained well out of sight of the guard towers, hidden within the craggy terrain that led down from the mountains.

"They don't seem to be mining," Neji said, his eyes glowing white and his temple throbbing with blood. "They're not even drilling—they seem to be just gathering rocks into a large pile."

"Aye," said Undrig. "They'll do that, dunno why, though. We 'aven't gotten close enough to be able ta see what they do wit the stones—must be somethin' fer their master, though."

"Ragnaros?" Gai said, narrowing his eyes as if he had spotted the Firelord himself.

"Aye," Undrig said, with a little shiver. "That'd be the one. Le's go around."

"Yeah," said Shikamaru.

They circled to the right around the giant crater, careful not to stay too long in sight of the tower. They stuck close to the mountains and when the tower was but a sliver in the distance, they broke off into the wasteland and headed northwest. The black fog grew heavier as they went, and the ash fell more frequently, and there was more wind, each gust like opening the door to a furnace, which flung ash into their faces regardless of their hoods. It hampered, but did not halt, their travel, though it was so slow that it gave the appearance of halting, especially when Shikamaru found that he had no idea where they were, or what direction to go in.

In that instance, Shikamaru thanked the Will that Undrig was with them.

"The wind always blows east, 'ere," he told them. "Always from the Blackrock Mountains, where the Dark Irons have their furnaces always runnin' and the Firelord rages beneath the earth."

With this in mind, Shikamaru led them, in only four days, to within sight of the Blackrock Mountains.

The air became strangely clear at this point, when Shikamaru thought it would be its worst. The block fog had faded, and for almost ten miles, Shikamaru could see clearly. Though the only thing he did see was an enormous black mountain.

The name Blackrock was obviously chosen well, because the mountain was just that—it stretched high into the air, so wide that it obscured three quarters of the visible sky and was so black that the orange, fire-licked sky seemed bland and dull, all the light it was supposed to give drawn into the heart of the great black mountain. Even as clear as it was, the black mountain had no features—it was simply a solid, black, triangular shape in the distance. The bottom was obscured by many glowing vents in the earth—the chimneys of the Blackrock populace spewing a less-than-homely black smoke into the air, which was also filled with a distant but constant hum, which seemed to reverberate through the earth.

Shikamaru glanced at Undrig. "How far can we go before we run the risk of being discovered?"

"Not much," said Undrig. "The Molten Core lies below us, even now. Once we 'it those vents, we're gonna need to go fast and 'ard, and you'll see more sentry towers when ye get closer."

"Then let's split up here. Are you done with those stones?"

"Aye," Undrig said, holding up a black sack. "Of fer each o yeh. Just in case yeh get lost or summat. All got one?" At their nods, he pocketed the pouch and returned to his gaze to the mountain.

"Where would Moira-sama most likely be?" Gai asked.

"The top, right?" said Chouji, pointing to the tip of the spire.

"Don' think so," Undrig said. "Dunno 'bout the top at all. Nobody ever seen anythin' goin' on up there, but some people—rumors—say that the top is 'ome to a brood o' dragons or summat. Seen somethin' flyin' around it, and we dwarves 'ate flyin' things."

"Dragons?" Ino said, blinking. "Like the one you fought with Naruto?"

"Doubt it," Undrig said. "Dunno if there are any black dragons left, after her. Or if there are, they ain't nowhere near as powerful. She was a big 'un. Broodmother, ye see. None o' them left, so they're pretty much extinct." He shook his head. "Nah, more likely just a nest o' chimeras. The whole Spire used to belong ta' the Blackhand orcs, but that was a long time ago, and they're gone anyways. Left it, along time ago, and after that went and got themselves beaten by Naruto and Thrall." He began stroking his beard. "Nah, the most likely place would be near the bottom. Dwarves like the ground, so it stands ta' reason that Moira, bein' Queen and all, would be at the bottom, near the entrance ta' the Core."

"Right," said Shikamaru. He turned to Neji, who was watching the mountain, but Shikamaru was sure he shifted his attention too. "Neji, I'll need you and Ino on reconnaissance."

Neji nodded, once. "For how long do we observe?"

Shikamaru thought a moment, resisting the urge to look at Gai or Asuma. Finally, he said, "The rest of the day. We'll plan the infiltration based on what we retrieve today." He told them where they should observe, and what to look out for, taking suggestions from Undrig as well. They needed one to scout out the inside, which would be Ino, due to her _Shintenshin_ _no jutsu_, while Neji would use his _Byakugan_ to scan for possible routes from the ventilation area around the mountain. They both understood.

Shikamaru glanced at Ino. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes remained strong and vigilant, so he again went against an urge to ask if she was alright, and instead said, "Good luck."

"Thanks," she said. She gave him half a smile, but it didn't last long, as Neji had already started moving. She followed a heartbeat later, and the two of them soon vanished, speeding towards their respective destinations.

The rest moved back into the black fog, and found a suitable crevasse to rest in. It was peppered with fire crabs—annoying little beasts that seemed to be made of lava and scuttled about, randomly singing their supplies as they passed, but they had gotten use to them at this point.

Then they waited, hardly speaking, in the midst of the violent winds and downpour of ash, huddled like lambs in a snowstorm, and waited for their friends to return.

* * *

"It's no good." 

Naruto and Sakura jumped a little at the sudden voice, which came out of the thick darkness of the tram tunnel and echoed throughout the silent station. Pakkun, Kakashi's favorite nin-dog, appeared a moment later, balancing on the middle track and looking as forlorn as he always did. He stopped before his master.

"Nothing?" Kakashi asked, bending down to face the dog directly.

"Nadda," the dog repeated. He sat on his haunches. "There's no smell from either of the two tunnels that lead from that mountain city. Whoever did it didn't come in through the tram tunnels. Nor did they leave."

"Which means," said Kakashi, "they came in through the city itself, right?"

"Right," said Pakkun. "Can I go?" At Kakashi's nod, he vanished in a puff of smoke.

"How?" asked Sakura, frowning up at Kakashi, who stood beside her on the tracks. "Without anyone seeing them, that would be—"

"Nigh impossible," said Kakashi. "Which means that we have to accept the fact that they may have had some help."

"What?" said Naruto. He was crouching on the edge of the train platform, staring into the tunnel. "From the dwarves? Why would they do that?"

"Who knows?" said Kakashi. "It would make sense, though, that they did it to take advantage of the confusion his death would cause—to seize power, or something of that nature."

"Perhaps," said Sai, who was crouching next to Naruto. "Were they hired killers then? It would make sense, given the information Benedictus-sama has given to us, wouldn't it?"

"True enough," said Kakashi. "Though, in a way, they didn't seem terribly professional, did they? They went through all that trouble to pull an elaborate scheme to frame the orcs and trolls, and yet it still has demonstrations of a more primitive type of fighting. They even stole the valuables off those they killed, didn't they?" He frowned, considering what to do. "That leaves us with only a few options, I suppose."

"Let's go to Hillsbrad," Naruto said, suddenly.

"Sounds good," said Kakashi. "Hopefully this Master Kang has sufficiently recovered by then."

"If not?" Sai said.

"Then we have Sakura do her best, see if she can speed it up."

"If not?" Sakura said this time.

"I don't think that far ahead," Kakashi said. "Let's go."

* * *

A figure stood at the top of Blackrock Spire, and gazed down on the Burning Steppes and the rest of the Hell-on-Earth with a pair of large, sulfurous orange eyes, like twin oceans of flame somehow captured in the space of two small globes; but at the same time they spilled out, flooding into the world and erasing everything they took in, with a just and cleansing flame. 

And yet taints of black swirled within the flames, like ships being sucked into a ravenous whirlpool—the pupil—and the flames that could cleanse, the flames that were just, suddenly seemed a little less cleansing, and a little less just. The pupils were wide and cold, and did not burn, but only devoured.

"_**It Is Almost Time,**_**"** he said to himself. The sound of his own voice soothed him, because no matter what form he took, it was always the same. He always, too, chose his words very carefully, so that each word seemed to carry power to it, and he never spoke a word, a phrase, or a sentence that did not have meaning, because never had his words been just words.

They had always been reality.

"_**Come," **_he said aloud again. "_**Come And Face Me. We Shall See Who Has Mastered Life. We Shall See Who Is The Greater God." **_

He loved that word: _god_. No matter who said it, no matter how weak or how small they were, it always sounded the same. It always carried the power that befitted it—that of a creator.

It was his favorite word of all.

Even his laugh had a meaning beyond that of a laugh, as it echoed throughout the wastelands, and the ash fell harder and the winds blew faster and hotter, and his enemy heard him, and answered in kind.

A distant rumbling filled the earth, shaking all the way up to where he stood atop his palace, atop the _world_.

It too, sounded like laughter.

Victor Nefarious smiled.

* * *

Reviews? Please? Plz? I'm in a mood to hear what you guys think more than usual. Tell me what I'm doing wrong, or right, if you prefer, though not too much, as ego boosters are never good in excess. 

Please, it takes five seconds and you may even enjoy it, especially if you get into a role in explaining my faults to me.

I realize that this isn't an action-packed chapter, but it was necessary all the same and I hope it was enjoyable, nonetheless. I tried to speed it along without actually making it feel rushed. How did that go?

Hope it was a good chapter, and I promise that the next chapter will contain action, adventure, and a hell of a lot more fighting! See you soon!

General Grievous


	23. The Descent

_Disclaimer: All of the characters not in World of Warcraft and Naruto are mine. How's that for a change of pace? You guys didn't expect me to be serious for once, did you?_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

_Days earlier…_

"No good?" Kira asked, when Naruto and the others emerged from the tram station, all looking glum.

Naruto slowly shook his head. "No. They didn't come in through the tram tunnels—it was from Ironforge."

Kira's eyes widened. "But then…" She didn't speak the words, because it didn't seem necessary. She nodded and sat down at the circular table of the great hall, her eyes narrowed and her brow wrinkled. Why would they do that, she wondered? Why would they betray their king? Why would any of them betray their king? It didn't make sense—not now, not ever. The dwarves had never once rebelled against a king, and Magni had been a glorious leader—why had one of his people betrayed him? What's more, who was it? Who had betrayed him? The timing of his death was too perfect for it to have been a run-of-the-mill blacksmith or soldier angry with Magni for his joining of the alliance, or something of that nature, so that left someone that Magni had trusted explicitly. Only a few that could claim that.

"Has Hindenborough-san arrived?" Kakashi asked, interrupting her thoughts. His face was soft and so was his voice. It was clear that he didn't want to cause more trouble for her as it was, though he seemed anxious to leave.

"Yes," she said. "But could you possibly leave later? Perhaps in the morning? I'd like to talk with Naruto about something, if that's possible." She glanced at Naruto, who had cocked his head to the side in curiosity.

Kakashi considered it no longer than a blink of the eye. "Why not? I have something to talk with him about as well, and I'd probably be safer on the ground to do that. I had assumed Benedictus-sama wanted us to leave as soon as possible."

"He does," she said, frowning at Kakashi's words, but deciding not to comment. "But I'd like you all to be a bit more prepared, and well, I didn't know when I'd get a chance to talk to Naruto again." She glanced towards the door. "I have to talk to Benedictus later, but I figured I should let him rest some. Please—you should all as well."

"Fine," said Kakashi, nodding. "Everyone get some rest—meet back here in five hours—you can get sleep on the zeppelin if you need more."

"Thank you," Kira said, smiling.

Kakashi nodded, gave her a small bow, and disappeared from the room. Yamato did the same a second later, though Sai and Sakura hung around, both watching Naruto and Kira and clearly hoping that they might stay for the chat. But Kira, who smiled at both of them, didn't speak or move, simply staring at them and making it clear that they were also to leave. Finally, Sai gave them all a smile and walked from the room, though Sakura yet lingered, still looking as if she'd rather stay and suffer the consequences, which her ego told her wouldn't be half as bad as letting them stay in the same room together. But she did leave in the end, knowing that nothing was going to happen as long as she lingered. She'd ask Naruto about it later.

"So what'd you want to talk about?" Naruto asked, finally.

Kira leaned forwards in her chair, and brushed the hair from her forehead glistening with sweat.

"I'm worried."

Naruto lowered his eyes. "You too?"

"Everything we've done," she said, softly, "could be destroyed by this, couldn't it? If this doesn't work out—if they don't accept Moira or her son as leader, then this could end the alliance as we know it. I don't…I don't know what to do any more, Naruto."

"I don't think any of us do," Naruto said, softly. "But I don't think any of us thought this would happen." He sighed and looked up, towards the stained glass window of Kira's father, whom he had never met, yet had heard so much about from Kira that he felt he knew him as well as she. "I mean we didn't plan for this, did we? Magni-jiisan, Thrall, Vol'jin—all of them seemed so strong, so wise, that I didn't think it was possible for them to be killed, you know? I mean, I fought with Thrall and Mekkatorque and Vol'jin, but all of them still seemed like, I dunno, they were unbeatable. I never even saw Magni-jiisan fight, but just from the way he spoke and carried himself, he felt just as strong and eternal." He glanced at her. "But I guess, he probably didn't feel like that to himself, did he?"

"I don't think they ever do," Kira said, meeting his eyes.

They were silent for a while longer. Then, Naruto said, "Guess that's the responsibility of all rulers, huh?"

"What?"

"To not die," he said, softly. "Because when they do, stuff like this happens, right? It happened with your dad, and it almost happened with Konoha, and Suna too, now that I think about it."

"A leader has to be the pillar of a people," Kira said. "That's why they have to be strong—if they aren't, they can't bear the weight." She shook. "That's why I feel so ashamed, sometimes—because for a while, I was so weak that I couldn't do anything myself, and I had to rely solely on you."

Naruto didn't answer. An uncomfortable feeling was broiling in his stomach, but he tried to keep it from showing anywhere else. He glanced at her.

"But you can't do everything alone."

"Yes," Kira said. "That's true." She took sighed, slumping down into her chair. "I guess I've sort of realized that too—but you can't always rely on the supporting pillars, can you? Magni's death proves that. So you have to be strong yourself…even if that strength requires nothing but will." She smiled slightly at him. "It's so hard to send you and the others away, when I know I could be there with you. But I can't, can I? I have to stay here, because I have that duty to my people. Even with the killers still out there, and with the dwarves falling apart, I can't do anything but stay here and wait, can I?"

"But that's…" Naruto paused a moment, choosing the words. "That's the strength of a ruler, isn't it?" He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't think I could do that. Not now. I guess I still have a lot to learn, huh?"

"We both do, I think." She smiled in the darkness, filled with warmth and kindness.

"I don't think we could have planned for this though, huh?"

Kira nodded slowly, and her smile faded into the darkness. "What do we do?"

"What we've said we'd do," Naruto said. "And hope for the best."

"That's all?"

"Right now," said Naruto. Then, he knitted his brows. "Where's Vol'jin anyways? And what about Thrall—have you guys heard anything from him?"

"I don't know about either," said Kira. "Thrall hasn't answered any of the messages we sent—using our best carrier birds, too, but Vol'jin hasn't been seen in days."

"Why would Thrall not answer?"

Kira's heart jumped a little, and her eyes briefly widened. "You don't think…?"

"No."

"But it could…"

"No," Naruto said again, shaking his head. "I don't think that's happened. There must be some other explanation."

Kira nodded, and fell silent for a while. It was too hard to think anymore. She was too tired, and even now that she had a moment to breathe, she couldn't find the will to grieve.

Magni was dead, yet she wasn't in tears. She felt the sadness, festering deep inside her, an ache that was gradually growing larger, knowing that she wouldn't see him or hear his laugh again, loud and brash; it was another thing that she remembered from her youth, before she could remember much other than her mother's smile. That booming laugh, mixed along with her father's, powerful enough to make your bones feel its joy; it was like a wild beast set free, and she remembered than never had his laughs been short and tempered, or forced and dishonest; always riotous and everlasting, and when it finally did stop, it was never far from being freed again.

But the beast was dead in its cage. She would never hear it again.

So why did she not grieve for it, and for him?

Because, she decided, it wasn't over yet.

She had done enough crying—_too_ _much_ lately, in fact. And though she knew there was plenty of time for it now, and even if for no better reason than allowing her to bury her face in Naruto's chest, she realized that she couldn't do that now. She looked up at her father's face, illuminated in the great stained glass window, and felt calm—not the detached calm of grief, but the alert calmness of someone who had experienced too much grief, and though not immune to its effects, could bear them upright and with pride. She looked at Naruto. He wasn't crying—though, he never cried, did he? He had borne the strength that she was still getting used to nearly all his life, hadn't he? But his eyes, she saw, were clouded and dark. She wondered how much was grief, and how much was from the past.

She smiled a little.

He was probably remembering Magni's smile.

"It's easy to feel calm around you," she finally said.

"Eh?" Naruto turned to her. "What?"

"I said," she said again, "it's easy to feel calm around you." She flushed a little. "Can I get a hug?"

Naruto blinked. "W-what?"

"A hug," she said, leaning a little closer. "You're good at giving them, and I think I need one right now—if that's okay," she added, leaning a little away in case Naruto didn't feel like one.

"N-no," Naruto said. "T-that's fine, if you want." He leaned a little forward, but looked awkward about it, which she rectified by wrapping her arms around him, and pulling him close so that her chin rested on his shoulder. He was stiff for a moment, his movements almost as mechanical as Sai's, before he slowly relaxed and settled into the embrace. He felt her shake against him for a moment, and he thought she would start to sob—but she didn't, and she finally broke the silence with a quiet laugh.

"Good hug," she said.

He nodded, and began to pull away. "That sarcastic?"

"No."

"Didn't think it was that good."

"For you?"

"For you."

Kira smiled against his shoulder, though he didn't know it. He began to pull away.

"Just a moment longer?" she asked.

"Sure."

When she finally pulled away, she looked refreshed and was smiling a little. She seemed far better than before. Naruto was amazed at the simple power of a hug—something he had never fully comprehended until now.

"You should go talk to Kakashi-san," said Kira. "And I have to speak with Sakura, and then Benedictus."

"About what?"

Her smiled did not fade, but it became sadder with her downcast eyes. "I wanted to give Sakura some of my healing books, as she might not have some of the jutsu in them. She might need them, you know?"

Naruto nodded. "She'll like that."

Kira nodded slightly. "Hope so."

"What are you talking with Benedictus about?"

"What else? My mother."

Naruto nodded once, then lowered his head. "I'll be back soon."

"Good. I can't wait," said Kira, smiling again.

* * *

"What'd you want to talk to me about?"

They were outside—it was not much later, and Naruto had easily found Kakashi, standing at the steps of the castle that the other team had a few hours earlier just left. The moon low, and in the very distance an arm of daylight was creeping over the horizon, preparing to stretch out and embrace the rest of the sky. They wouldn't wait much longer, and neither held the illusion that they would be getting any sleep.

"A few things," said Kakashi.

"Where're Sakura-chan, Sai and Yamato-sensei?"

"_Senpai,"_ Kakashi said, with a smile. "He's not your sensei, just a team leader in my absence."

"Yeah, but he did teach me some things."

"At my direction," said Kakashi. "I just feel jealous when you refer to other people as sensei."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Oh. Sorry."

Kakashi chuckled. "I wanted to talk to you about your elemental _chakra_ use. Can I ask you something?"

Naruto nodded.

"What have you been able to use it for, so far?"

"Just the sword, mostly," Naruto said, touching the hilt of the blade tied to the back of his belt. "I've been trying to use it for other things as well, though."

"Such as?"

"_Kazaashi_," said Naruto. "I can make myself go a little faster, but not much—it still feels a bit strange, and it's hard to use both at the same time, like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head at once, or something like that. It's not impossible, but I'll need a lot of practice."

"Keep working on that," said Kakashi. "Make sure you've mastered it as best as you can, because that's going to be invaluable to you. If you can make yourself faster, and have better control, then that technique can easily become the strongest and most versatile in your arsenal." Before Naruto could say anything in response, however, he drew something from his pouch and held it out to Naruto.

"These again?" Naruto took one of the little papers that he had once used to determine his primary elemental affinity.

"Put more _chakra _into it this time—not just a little like last time, but do it until something happens to the paper that isn't dividing it in two."

Naruto stared at him, confused. "Why?"

"You're going to find out your secondary element, and once you do, I want you to train with that as well."

Naruto stared at him, but receiving nothing but Kakashi's typical lazy, impassive stare in return, he sighed and did as the man asked. The _chakra _flowed easily into the paper, which immediately divided into two pieces—but Naruto kept going. He did it until the paper began to glow and blacken, eventually shriveling into ashes.

"Fire," said Kakashi. "As I thought."

"Why'd we have to do that if you thought it, and I knew it?" said Naruto. "I told you fire was easier for me."

"I just wanted to make sure. I want you to practice some more fire _jutsu_. I'll teach you some, if you like, but I want you to become as familiar as possible with both your elemental affinities, especially when they're as useful as yours."

Naruto frowned. "Useful? How?"

"It's a curious mix, wind and fire," said Kakashi. "Because wind is used to enhance fire, which means that using one you can vastly increase the power of another."

"But doesn't that only work if you have a _kekkai genkai_?" Naruto said.

"Normally," said Kakashi, with a brisk nod. "But you've already demonstrated that you can use ice—which means that there's no telling what other abilities you might be able to use. I want you to work on trying to combine those, in some form or another."

"You're not giving me any help?"

"Can't," said Kakashi, shrugging. "I have no idea how." He ignored Naruto's gloomy stare, and leaned forwards toward the boy. "But there's one more thing I want you to work on. Yamato told me about your attempt with the wind _chakra _and the _Rasengan_. That's good—you're already trying to complete it."

Naruto knit his brows as tightly as an expert clothier's finest quilt. "Huh? Complete it?"

"Right," said Kakashi. He tugged a bit at his facemask, adjusting it to fit his face more comfortably, though he never broke eye contact with his blonde student. "I want you to complete it—the _Rasengan _that you have now is only a third or so completed. You've gone as far as the Fourth did in his life, but he never intended to stop there. The primary power of the _Rasengan_ was originally meant to come from the elemental property added to it."

Naruto thought a moment. It sounded familiar, though he couldn't remember where—

"That's right," he mumbled. "Ero-sennin told me about it once, he said there were eight levels, so that must mean…?"

"Right," said Kakashi, nodding. "Five more levels, one for each element. That was his intention, but as I said, he wasn't able to complete it, before he died."

Naruto stared at him. "…So you want me to complete the _jutsu_?"

"Yes," said Kakashi. "If you do, it'll become more powerful than you can imagine. It'll be, in the words of you young people, a _sure-kill technique._" He grinned, visible through the mask.

"You want me to complete something not even the Fourth could?" Naruto said, stunned.

"Pretty much."

"Alright."

Kakashi chuckled. "I thought you'd be a little more troubled than that."

Naruto shook his head. "Not really. I'll do it, and that's a fact. I don't care if the Fourth wasn't able to do it—I'm going to become stronger than him, no matter what."

"You speak those words well."

The voice drifted from out of the darkness to their left, towards the side of the castle, where the gardens were. She appeared robed in white, as she always did, but her skin and hair were almost invisible in the pale, moonlit night. Tyrande Whisperwind spoke with confidence, yet her voice was smoother and more beautiful than the finest silk, but carried as swift and direct as the moonlight that now shined down on them.

"Tyrande!" Naruto said happily. It was such a swift change that Kakashi was only struck by it after Naruto had bolted from his side, abandoning his determined face as he wrapped his hands around the dark-skinned elf, who embraced him back as a mother might a child.

He gaped.

So this was the Tyrande of infamy?

He looked closer. Wow. For some reason, he now felt unduly conscious of his scruffy hair, his wrinkled uniform, the ratty facemask that he almost never took off even in the privacy of his own home, and the worn, orange book he kept against his breast. He found himself reddening, even as Tyrande turned her attention to him, and glided across the grass towards him.

"I have heard much of you."

"Likewise," he said, clearing his throat, feeling a little restless, and smiling far too wide. Tyrande smiled back, and Kakashi found he had never smiled quite so large in his life. He wondered if his face would be okay after it. He always did have a problem with a clicking jaw. He hoped too that it wasn't too weird. But he was aware that he was smiling through a mask, so he decided there wasn't much hope for that. He probably looked kind of creepy, now that he thought about it. But even as he did, he didn't stop smiling because it was hard not to when faced with such a beautiful, flawless carved visage such as Tyrande's, overflowing with such warmth that it shamed his own mother's kindness from when he was a child of about four, before she had died. He was quite aware that this was the first time he'd ever been uncomfortable around a woman. He wondered what that meant. He should probably stop smiling and start talking, he realized. He probably looked a little foolish standing there, so straight-backed, with such an eerie smile on his face.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the man's actions, and looked at Tyrande, who appeared perfectly serene, as always. He looked back at Kakashi, who looked like a one of those clown blow-up dolls that Naruto had seen in toy stores around Konoha. He wondered what would happen if he punched the man. He decided not to, even though it was tempting, as he was slowly becoming creeped out by the man's smile. Tyrande appeared unaffected.

"So you're Tyrande-sama?" Kakashi said, nodding very quickly. "I've heard of you. Naruto speaks very highly of you."

Tyrande nodded. "As he does you. I also appeared to have interrupted something. Should I leave?"

"Ah! No no no, that's fine…um, we were just finishing anyways," said Kakashi.

"We were?" Naruto said.

"Yeah. You said your required 'determined guy' line, so it's done. You don't need to prove it to me." He smiled at Tyrande again, in a way that Naruto hadn't quite identified yet, mostly because of the mask—but he was beginning to think it looked rather like Ino or Sakura-chan when they had been besotted with Sasuke. Only to see it one Kakashi-sensei's face was a bit…odd (though that words hardly did it justice, he wouldn't be able to explain it properly until he had someone with a slightly bigger vocabulary with him).

"I have heard of your mission," Tyrande said, softly. Her smile faded, and the moonlight seemed to follow it.

"Ah," said Kakashi. His smile was gone, as had all traces of his former oddness. "What is your opinion on this situation, if I may ask?"

"In what way?"

"Do you think this situation is salvageable?"

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't think so," she said. "But I do not believe that even if this situation is salvaged, that things will return to normality—not now. This act will have done exactly what it was intended to."

"Oh?" Kakashi said. "Foster prejudice, right?"

"Yes," said Tyrande. She glanced at Naruto, who had become solemn as well, and was listening to their conversation dutifully. "The elder generation will not have forgotten the past, and they, in all of our kingdoms, will be pressing for action. I have already heard many things from Darnassus—those that were originally angry with my decision will use this situation to argue—a very compelling argument, I might add—to cut all ties and exist as we had before Naruto arrived. I've heard whispers among the people of this town, too, about their close living neighbors and the trolls that have set up shop in the outer portions of the city. Even if we quell this situation, we will not be able to stop what is inevitable."

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "So what do we do about it? If we know it's going to happen, then what do we…? Do we try and stop them before they rebel, or something?"

Tyrande shook her head. "It will do nothing. We can only assuage their fears, and at best, bring the real killers to justice—this kind of prejudice can only be cured with time, although we don't have much of that, do we?"

"No," said Kakashi. "That has always been the problem, hasn't it? The wound is always reopened before it can completely heal, and no matter what, the past continues to flow into the present. People will never forget their hatred."

"You speak like a wise king," said Tyrande, smiling.

Kakashi blushed beneath his mask, and around the top edges it was just visible.

Naruto didn't respond to Kakashi's words, though he couldn't resist a raised eyebrow at the man's strange reaction. He stared off in the direction of the town for a while, thinking about what both had said, until he turned to Tyrande and asked, "How long are you staying?"

"As long as needed," she said. "Archdruid Fandral—who is as much a leader as I—is overseeing everything that is necessary in Darnassus. It will, however, likely be only a few more days, for there is only so much I can do. I intend to speak with Vol'jin, before I leave, however."

"Where is he?"

"The forest, or so I'm told," she said. "I do not know if he is hiding or oblivious, though the latter seems doubtful—when the Alliance last battled him, there was never a point where he did not seem to know things that seemed so unlikely that prediction was impossible. He was an excellent strategist, and we lost many battles, due to his cunning and guile. He is not doing it without reason, then."

"Do you think he'll talk with you?"

"Perhaps," said Tyrande. "Although, truthfully, I am not looking forwards to it."

"Huh? Why not?"

Tyrande shook her head. "No matter what I do, I also cannot forget that he was once my enemy—it will be difficult to speak with him civilly, especially when we are alone." Her smile saddened a little. "Forgive me."

Naruto gave a little shrug, but didn't answer.

"The sun's almost up," said Kakashi. "Go wake up Sakura and Sai, and we'll—"

"We're already up," Sakura's voice, in the midst of a yawn, wafted into the morning from behind them. She came through the door, stretching and looking a little bedraggled, and Sai trailed a little behind her, smiling, not a hair out of place.

"Are we ready to go?" Sakura asked.

"Pretty much," said Kakashi.

"There is one last thing," said Tyrande. She reached into the folds of her robes, and pulled an oval stone inlaid with shiny blue gems that made the picture of an eye. She handed it to Naruto, who recognized it immediately.

"A hearthstone?" he said.

"It will save you the trouble of returning with Matthias, which takes time—this will take none at all, so use it well. I have bound it specifically for here."

"Do you know if Gai's team has one of these?" Kakashi asked, peering at the stone with interest.

"I would hope so."

"Fine then." He nodded and turned.

"I'll tell them that you have left, so that you are wasting no time," Tyrande said. "Good bye, and good luck." She leaned down, and planted a small kiss on Naruto's forehead, which made it and the rest of his face light up like the dawning sun.

"Say goodbye to Kira-chan for me."

"I shall."

* * *

_Present_

Ino and Neji returned that night, when the black clouds were no longer highlighted with fiery orange, and the black fog had become almost as thick as solid stone—Neji had to guide Ino back, once they met up, because she couldn't see anything, and it took them both over an hour to get back, through the winds that were blowing ever more violently.

They were both exhausted, but unharmed, and when they had safely devoured their share of water and some food, they told everyone what they saw.

"There are guards swarming the entrance," said Ino, tugging her hood up farther so that the ash didn't get in her face, but at the same time making it harder for them to hear her. "And inside it's no joke either. They're everywhere. I was barely able to snatch one from where I was, and I managed to get a fair ways down before I got out of range of my _jutsu_. There aren't many guards inside, per say, but there are still tons of dwarves—laborers, I think. They were all filthy and malnourished, like they hadn't eaten in weeks. They didn't seem too attentive, either—they just shambled around, doing whatever they seemed to have been told to be done, which was mostly moving rocks and other things like that."

"Did you speak to anybody?" Shikamaru asked.

"Yes," she said. "I took a guard, so it wasn't suspicious."

"Did you ask where Moira-sama was?"

Ino raised an eyebrow. "Are you kidding? Of course not. I asked when the next shipment of stones was being taken down."

Now Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Why, exactly?"

"You're the brainiac," said Ino, grinning. "You figure it out." She glanced at Neji, who took it as a sign to report what he had observed.

"The tunnels below are simple up until a point. They are direct, and simply lead down to a series of circular chambers with smaller ones—perhaps dozens to each large chamber—branching off, until they reach a large hole. I'd say the depth at that point was around two or three miles, probably more. I wasn't able to see much of what lay beneath that—it must have been miles deeper—only the topmost portion of another set of caves, which I assumed was the Molten Core—there, the passages are more complex and much larger, though there did not seem to be anything living in there."

Gai nodded. "What of the numbers of dwarves?"

"I observed hundreds—perhaps thousands—in the main chambers, though that got progressively lower as one descended. There were only a few near the bottom, at the top of the large hole. There was only three chambers there—one large one, with two smaller branching off."

"That's likely where the throne room is, then," said Shikamaru, nodding. He glanced at Ino, and smiled. "When did the shipment of rocks leave, then?"

"They leave all the time," she said, smiling. "Which I why I followed up that question with, 'where did they go again?' so the guy just thought I was an idiot, or just a very sheltered guard—which I guessed wasn't terribly out of place. I think each chamber is a tier of sorts, for social classes, maybe. Like Neji said, the most dwarves were in the first chamber, which I was able to get to. They were all workers." She scratched her nose with the inside of her hood, so that she didn't smudge her face with her dirty fingers. "The guard told me that they all go to the bottom, where they're given to 'our true king,' just as they always have been."

Undrig scratched his beard, uncaring of the dirt. "Bit strange, tha'. Dunno what that thing would wan' with a bunch o' rocks."

"I can answer that, too," said Ino, frowning. "I decided to finish it off by asking why, and since he was already well aware I was retarded, he answered just as easily." She took a sip of water.

"'_For our war,'"_ she said.

Undrig's eyes grew very narrow, like bottomless crevasses in a mountain.

"War…ye say?"

"Yeah," said Ino. "He didn't say against who—I don't even think he would believe _I_ was that stupid."

"Right then,' Shikamaru said, after a moment. "I think our best choice then, would be _henge_."

Gai nodded, but he was not smiling in approval as he normally would.

"A fine plan," he said. "But you're forgetting something—Lee."

Shikamaru winced, and glanced at Lee. The boy, however, kept his head up and his eyes focused, unwilling to let himself feel that old scar—his inability to use _jutsu_ entirely.

"Sorry, Lee," Shikamaru said, wondering how he could have forgotten.

Lee nodded, and smiled, but didn't speak.

"What about a _combo henge_? Or a _multi-henge_?" Chouji asked.

"Neither would work, given the amount of time we're going to be down there," said Asuma, sighing. "We'd be in no shape to fight. None of us have the _chakra _to keep a _multi-henge_ going for that long. We'll be down there for hours, it sounds like, with hardly any chance of escape once being discovered, and a _combo_ henge would be too big for a dwarf, unless they were a particularly fat one…but they probably won't believe that."

"However," said Gai. "That does not mean that _henge_ must be eliminated entirely—in fact I agree with you that it's our best bet for entering. We must simply accommodate." He looked at Ino. "How, exactly, are the rocks transported?"

"Either by hand," said Ino, frowning, "or by these small carts they have everywhere there." Then she began to nod. "I see where you're going."

"So do I," Shikamaru said. "And I like it."

* * *

Benedictus' nose twitched and he rubbed it—the first movement he'd made in over six hours that hadn't consisted of turning a page, and Kira knew that because she'd been timing it. He'd started reading at six that morning, after a rushed breakfast (it had consisted of a cup of tea and a single roll with jam, and according to her healer instincts, neither was sufficient for a full day's work), and he had holed himself up in the chapel since, and it was now—she glanced at the clock again—twelve thirty-four. 

She glanced at the book she was reading, as well, but found it hard to read. She needed more sleep, and the words were blurry and she was fighting to keep herself focused but it wasn't working, and the worst part was that her hundred-year-old master seemed perfectly fine.

"What have you found?" she finally asked.

The old man briefly glanced up. "Many things," he said, hoarsely.

"Anything useful?"

He gave a little shrug, and returned to the book. "Perhaps."

They'd been at this for almost a week. Every day she had asked that question. Every day he had responded the same. The man no longer seemed human—he seemed to run on merely his thirst for knowledge, and hardly got up at all or even touched the food that was brought to him. He went to the bathroom twice a day, something that she didn't believe was possible in old men like him, and he hardly spoke, so that when he did, he sounded hoarse like a coma victim first waking up.

Despite the length of time since it had happened—nearly a week—Benedictus had spoken little to Kira after their conversation about the events that had occurred at Stratholme. Truthfully, it had hardly been a discussion at all. She had told everything to Benedictus, who in the end asked her merely a question.

"So do you know her now?"

"Yes," Kira had said.

"Then there's nothing more to discuss, is there? I suppose that boy beat me to it, then."

Kira flushed.

They didn't speak again, but neither got up and left the quiet chapel. The silence was only broken when Sevenius Coutrend entered with two attendants, each carrying an armful of thick, old books.

"This should be a start," he said. "I'll get more if you need it."

"I think you mean 'when'," Benedictus said, pulling a pile towards him. "I think this is hardly sufficient."

"Oh? What is it that you are looking for, exactly?"

"A faith whose name I, curiously, cannot remember—I can only, in brief, describe the practices of it, which is why I have been looking for more information."

"Describe it to me," Coutrend said.

"It is an ability that allows them to destroy their attacker without ever touching them—creating wounds where wounds cannot be created," the old man said. "That is all I know, at this point."

"It sounds familiar," Coutrend said, frowning. "It is odd. I don't know why I cannot recall it—I am no stranger to ancient faiths, and for some reason this practice that you describe I can picture very easily, but I cannot name it nor can I recall any other information."

"Odd indeed," said Benedictus, opening the book he had set in front of him, and no longer looking at Coutrend, "that an archivist of your caliber would be thrown by this, isn't it? I wonder." He said no more, and so Coutrend swept from the room, saying that he would do some research himself.

Since then, all they had done was read, or at least, that's all Benedictus had done. Kira had spent a lot of her time around the city, allaying the fears—or trying to—that they were in danger through their alliance with Thrall and Vol'jin. But she was startled at the amount of fear—and by proxy, hatred— they still held for their former enemies; people who had formerly been more or less accepting of the help the orcs and trolls had given them in the past in rebuilding their city. Fears, however, did not end with just the orcs and trolls—it spread to tauren, and it had always been there with the Forsaken. The newcomers to the city suddenly frightened its people, even though many saw them everyday and had been doing so for several months, trading with them and working alongside them, without notable incident. She heard from the guards many accounts of prejudice—whether just name-calling and sneering, or outright violence, which despite their publicity, nobody seemed to notice or care about. She found it heartless that her own people could be so uncaring.

Benedictus just asked her to understand them. She found it almost impossible.

The trolls, and what few orcs had stayed, she did not see at all. She encountered occasionally a passing tauren, but they did not speak to her, and her efforts to talk to them were largely ignored.

Kira tried to force the rising despair away. She didn't let herself think of it, and tried to face each day with a fresh face. When things got too much, she went to the chapel and helped Benedictus read, or talked with Kylia and visited the Dwarven Quarter, which remained as barren and lifeless as it had when her father had driven them out.

She tried too, not to think about the shinobi parties. Whenever she did, they were never good thoughts.

It was a week since both parties had left, and in that time, they hadn't learned much—at least in Kira's opinion. The Archive books yielded a wealth of information, but none of it seemed useful. The only good news was that they had heard from the Blackrock group, and Kira had been delighted when she had found Undrig had joined them. They, according to Benedictus, would be within range of the Blackrock Mountains at this point, and had probably already begun the mission into it. She had no idea when she might hear from them again, if at all—and once she got on that track, she found it difficult to get off.

Naruto's group had arrived four days prior, but since then they hadn't heard much, other than that they would be investigating the ruins of Ravenholdt first, which would take several days just to reach it. She wondered what they would find, and kept checking with Tsuwabuki to see if they had sent anything. But the fox yielded nothing, and merely slept by Kira's side at all times, as faithful as Kylia, who at that moment appeared to be nodding off over her own book. It made Kira smile; one of the few things she could currently smile about. She did her best to find as many as she could—she talked to the cooks as often as she could, which brought back memories of her childhood as well as provided her with enough trash-talk and cursing to win most battles without even lifting a finger; but which she knew she would never be able to use in front of Benedictus because the old man would certainly attempt to wash out her mouth with soap, as he had often done in her youth when she'd used naughty words. She lingered among her people as well, and focused a number of her conversations on everything but the current situation with the other races. She mostly talked with those who owned restaurants, asking them for the best noodle shop in town, which Naruto had yet to find, and she hoped she'd be able to surprise him with when he got back and everything was over. She had a few names that she hoped to try.

She simply tried to smile, because it delayed the worry that she felt, both awake and in slumber.

But they had had other news: from Tyrande and from Tsunade. Tsunade had said that they should not expect her return for some time—she had other matters that needed her attention, but should they need shinobi, they merely need to ask. Tyrande's news was more troubling.

"I have met with Vol'jin," she said one day. She had appeared in the great hall, unannounced, sitting in her chair, as the last vestiges of night were swept clean from the sky, and the moon had descended into its den for the day.

"Then tell us," Benedictus had said. He seemed less eager to know of the troll's whereabouts than with the forthcoming reading.

"Has something happened?" Kira asked, worried.

"Nothing terrible," said Tyrande. "He thought it wise, once he had heard the news, to make himself scarce—but he has remained in the area."

"Why?" Benedictus asked, calmly.

"Because he is worried," she said. "That the killers will come here next."

"Would they?" Kira asked.

"It is not impossible," said Benedictus. "You are certainly a target, and killing you would no doubt be the greatest blow to the alliance than any other leader's death. But that would suggest that they know a whole lot more about our alliance than most outsiders—which begs the question of who has 'snitched' as they say."

Kira stared worriedly at him. "In Ironforge?"

"Most certainly," Benedictus said. "But there is no telling where else. What else did Vol'jin say?"

"He has seen something, in the future, or so he says."

"Do you not believe in precognition?"

"Of course I do," said Tyrande. "But I don't not believe it lies in what patterns bones make when they fall, or the sounds they make when rattled together. But I am not going to deny that I don't hold stock in his prediction—he has shown that he is capable in it before, against us in the previous war."

"What has he predicted?"

"All he said was—"a rain-soaked shadow from the north plans, two shadows from beneath the earth are close, and two giants will soon battle, while an icy wind blows across everything."

"Very portentous," said Benedictus. "Will you write it down, Kira? I am sure we will need it soon enough."

"You are rather unsurprised," said Tyrande.

"I am too busy to be bothered with it now," said Benedictus. "I will discover it soon enough."

"Discover what?"

"Who has slain dear Magni. I am just hoping that Naruto and the others will be able to provide the necessary information, when they arrive. As for this prediction, it may prove true or not, but I also have a feeling that something, perhaps many little things in quick succession, will soon occur. I have no idea what, however, though I will take Vol'jin's words to heart. Is he still in the area?"

"No. He has returned to Stranglethorn. I believe he intends to discover the fates of those trolls that ended up dead at Magni's feet. And he intends to contact Thrall."

"A wise move. I have done ordered that done repeatedly, but I have been unable to reach him."

"Why do you think he is not responding?" Kira asked.

"I cannot say," said Benedictus, with a little shrug. "But it must be a grave thing to cut all ties at this point. We shall see what happens."

* * *

Lee didn't like the plan one bit. 

The ground shook beneath up, as the cart rolled along on the rocky floor of the passageway that led down to the first great chamber, that belonging to the workers and slaves of the Dark Iron Empire. He lay at the bottom of the cart, with rocks strategically placed above him so that though they did not crush him, they came close to it, and even closer with each jostling movement of the cart. He did not dare chance asking one of his teammates, who were pushing the cart, to slow down and avoid the bumps—even though he couldn't see it, he knew that they were surrounded.

Getting Lee into the cart had been difficult—it had taken a group of three—Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji—to transform into Dark Iron workers, while Asuma had assumed the role of an overseer guard. Though Neji had commented that his acting had seemed a tad forced, the guards and other overseers didn't see anything out of place when Asuma ordered a group of workers to return to the mines, and that these ones would take their shipment of rock. "They were slow and clumsy," he had told them, with a cruel sneer. "So they're doin' double. Better not be the same." The dwarves had quickly hurried off, afraid of what Asuma might do if they lingered.

After that, the plan progressed as smoothly as a skiff across calm waters on a breezy day. They unloaded the rocks, and let Lee get inside, and then placed four large rocks on each side of his body that would allow him a tiny space to lie so that his body wasn't crushed, before loading the rest back in. Gai, Neji and Tenten all assumed the roles of guards, as had Undrig, though his was much cruder than there's—he wiped and smudged soot on his face, and dirtied his hair until it was black as pitch. Yet it worked perfectly, and he seemed to make an even better Dark Iron dwarf than any of them—he hadn't looked at all that different from them anyways, save for a slightly lighter toned skin and hair that wasn't black. They entered before the rest, to mingle with the others and gradually make their way down. Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji stayed with Lee and pushed the cart—Asuma acting as the cruel overseer every moment of the way. Lee would hear him shout every so often—it was easy to tell his voice apart from the others, because the accent was still lacked inflection at points, and he rarely contracted his words as the other dwarves did, though none of the workers seemed to care and Asuma didn't speak up around the guards.

Lee had shed himself of his annoyance in not being able to use _jutsu_ a long time ago. But it was a times like this that he felt it return like a ravenous cancer, and he found himself during the descent hovering between depression and anger, though he released it by repeating a slow, calming mantra to himself, one that he'd used since he had started training with Gai.

I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it.

He didn't need _jutsu_ to be a shinobi. He had never needed it. And no matter what situation came about, he could always come out on top, as good as his comrades even without their tricks. He'd learned it from his mentor and first friend, and so it had to be true.

His condition was a stigma among shinobi families, though Lee had no such family to speak of—they had been shinobi, but had died in a mission when he was very young. He had been sent to the local orphanage, where he had still been teased and harassed for his weird eyes, and later when he had joined the Academy, for his inability to perform _jutsu. _Even his Academy teachers had lost hope that he'd ever become a proper shinobi. Lee had too.

Then he'd met Gai-sensei, of course.

Gai had shown him that it was hardly the _jutsu_ that made one a shinobi, and he didn't need such a thing for him to become as strong and as useful as the rest. All it took was hard work, and a goal.

And, of course, the flames of youth.

By the time they reached the first tier, crowded with Dark Iron dwarves, stinking of melting iron and dust, hotter than anything Lee had ever dreamed of, and so _loud_—the clanking of chains, the hammering of metal on metal, the shouting, the moaning, everything echoing off the immense ceiling of the chamber— that for a while Lee lost all sense of direction, and at a point felt almost abandoned amongst the sounds of the deep. He couldn't tell if his friends were there or not—he couldn't here Asuma's voice, and the movement of the cart blended in with the tramping of a thousand feet inches from his ears.

But he didn't feel frightened,

He felt calmer than before, and the humiliation of earlier had completely worn off, when he realized it was silly. He hadn't been abandoned—the very fact that he was within the cart proved that. His friends had augmented the mission for his sake, had changed their plan to fit his disability. They did it because he was their friend, and they were his.

So they wouldn't leave him.

Lee felt the passion of youth begin to once again burn within him—a flame hotter than anything an elemental Firelord could manage. It was something, as Gai had always said, that could never burn out, no matter how many years passed.

So with the flames of youth burning raw and uncontrolled in his chest and eyes, Lee waited and listened, and took comfort in his friend's invisible presences, as they trundled along to their inevitable meeting with the one who, as Gai believed, would now need the flames most—deep within the caves, where a very different flame burned, and had burned, for almost as long.

The cart jumped, and Lee smacked his face into the rock mere inches from his face. He was lucky it was loud outside.

He didn't like the plan one bit.

But he'd do it anyways.

* * *

The heat was unbearable in the midst of the mass of toiling dwarves, though the majority of it seemed to come from the branching chambers, where smoke steadily rose and an intense heat wafted at all times; despite this, Shikamaru refrained from wiping his forehead, because as he looked around, he found that the dwarves were not sweating—indeed, they didn't even appear fatigued. Their tasks appeared random and at points, entirely pointless—they hammered the large rocks, breaking them into smaller and smaller pieces until they were nothing but dust. Sometimes they found chunks of a black metal within, and then put this into other carts, which then were taken into one of the side chambers. Sometimes they did nothing but shuffle back and forth, doing nothing but looking dazed until an overseer whipped them back into work. He had watched them as his team had guided the cart down, and seen that though they grunted in effort and did not appear at all happy, they did not complain and nor did they seem bothered at all by the situation they were in. They appeared as bored as Shikamaru would if he was forced to do paperwork all day. 

It was commonplace to work so hard.

He remembered how long they had lived here—near three hundred years ago Ragnaros had arrived and enslaved them. For three hundred years, their kind had been cooped up in this place and forced to do the same things, for lifetimes. No wonder it had become bored to them. They had been raised doing it.

He observed the guards, too—and they rarely looked any more excited than their lower-class brethren. He guessed that the second tier—the chamber below them—would be the warrior class, consisting of guards and probably the standing army, if there was one. Below that would be aristocracy, and below that would be…The Elemental.

But it seemed a little strange, that despite being ruled by a creature so much stronger than them that it could be compared to an invading human in a colony of ants, they yet retained some semblance of a culture—in other words, they were proud enough of their existences as Dark Iron dwarves to retain their individuality, rather than falling completely under the heel of the Firelord. It was unlikely that the creature had cared enough about them to swat it out.

It probably didn't even understand them.

Their progress was already severely hampered—the sheer number of dwarves, and the large number of carts similarly being taken down, held them up long enough for Undrig, Gai, Neji and Tenten to move on ahead—he had lost sight of them long ago, amidst the thousands of other similar faces. Shikamaru would wait until there was less confusion—and noise—to call them using the stones Undrig had given them.

They crossed the cavern in almost half an hour, due to both its size and the constant need to stop and wait for the other carts to continue moving, or for a group of guards to pass by. Eventually they were led to a small passage that sloped down, and was much smaller than the previous—there were few guards here, and seemed only to be a train of carts which led deeper and deeper into the earth. The smell of sulfur became especially noxious by this point, and Shikamaru was struggling to keep his face as composed and unobtrusive as the other workers—he noticed Asuma looked hardly the different, and he guessed his smoker's lungs had something to do with it.

This passage stretched on for almost an hour, and even then they had reached no end.

Ino leaned in towards Shikamaru, several hours after they had left the first chamber. "Where's the second chamber?" she whispered.

"I don't know." He glanced at Asuma, and made a quick motion with his hand. Asuma nodded, and fell back a bit, and then pretended to see Shikamaru slacking off—he gave the boy a slight kick, and shouted at him to speed up. The dwarves a head of them glanced back once, only to see Asuma glaring menacingly at them, before they returned their focus forwards and did not look back.

As Asuma stood just behind him, under the guise of "keeping a close eye on him" Shikamaru removed the stone from his pocket, and made a quick seal. He held it up to his throat, and began to whisper.

"Can anyone hear me?" He held it to his ear.

There was no response for a moment. Then, a soft voice whispered, "Shikamaru, that you?"

"Tenten," he said. "Where are you?"

"The second chamber. It's full of blacksmiths and weapon makers—it's kind of amazing, to tell you the truth." She stopped and seemed to rethink her situation. "There are far fewer guards here though, and there aren't many blacksmiths either."

"I don't know," said Shikamaru. "We should've arrived at the second chamber by now, but…"

"You've passed it." It was Neji's voice now, quiet and strong as if he were right beside Shikamaru, but only he could hear the voice. "I can see you—you're already on your way towards the last chamber, though you won't ever make it. The passage you're in will take you beyond that, into a room of it's own, with another hole. Probably where they dump the rocks."

"Are there any chambers branching out?"

"No."

Shikamaru growled. Crap, he thought. How were they going to get there now? They had already lost a lot of time, and they seemed to be trapped, too. How were they going to—

Shikamaru's breath suddenly hitched. That was it. They had no choice. He glanced at Chouji, and leaned towards him.

"Chouji, when I say so, hit the wall or the floor with all your strength. Enough to cause a cave in."

Chouji stared at him. "What? But all of those—" He looked at the workers in front, and in back.

Shikamaru grit his teeth. "There's no time. Reduce as many casualties as possible." He told the same thing to Asuma and Ino, the latter looking just as horrified as Chouji, the former just nodding in mute response. He then told this to Tenten and Neji, and then Lee, as well.

"I'll use _multi-henge," _he told the boy, softly. "We'll have to do it quick, so I'll tell you when to come out so that nobody is watching.

"I trust you," was Lee's somber, determined response.

"What should we do?" Tenten asked softly in his ear.

"Keep going. See if you can locate Moira-sama and the child. We'll catch up as soon as we can."

"Right."

Shikamaru asked Ino to use a _jutsu_ to create enough confusion so that when Chouji caused the cave in, there would be little chance of Lee being seen.

Shikamaru waited a few moments before he gave the signal. He had to wait for a place where visual acuity would be minimized for at least one half of the cart train—in this case, the front half, so he chose a particularly sharp bend in the passage.

He nodded to Chouji, who had been watching and waiting for his signal near the front of the cart.

The boy made a quick seal, and his foot suddenly swelled as thick as an oak trunk, and he drove it into the ground. The entire cavern shook and roared as loudly as a waking volcano, as cracks darted up the sides of the wall and met at the ceiling, dislodging the rock amidst a chorus of screaming dwarves. The ceiling exploded, dust flew, but they had already acted.

Ino blazed through a series of hand seals. '_Ninpo: Rouzeki no Jutsu'_

It worked. Disoriented and terrified, the dwarves running up the crumbling passage barely noticed them, wildly flinging their arms in the air and howling like animals, as Lee burst from the side of the cart, grabbing hold of Shikamaru's outstretched hand. A moment later there were two dwarves, each nearly identical.

They were already running.

The passage continued to fall, and behind them a wall of smoke was surging towards them, black and consuming as night. The ground cracked and shook as they ran, passing abandoned carts, their contents spilled over the ground, and many dwarves who had stumbled this way—and had met their ends at the feet of their comrades. The ceiling shattered and tumbled down behind them, and before them as well, peppering them with small rocks and debris. Chouji leapt out of the way of a larger rock, which could easily have killed him, and Shikamaru twisted and dodged as best he could, keeping Lee as close to him as possible so that the _henge_ was not broken. The roaring grew only louder, and it seemed as if the world was ending.

For some of the dwarves, it must have been.

By the time they had reached the central chamber again, it was filled with panicked, frantic dwarves. All of them had stopped working, and the guards were trying desperately to quell the pandemonium that had broken out—but it was perfect.

They slid from the rest of the crowd and took only a moment to retransform into guard uniforms, before they descended the much wider cavern. They met a torrent of guards rushing up who hardly noticed their presence due to the din from the preceding room, and it took far less time to reach the bottom.

The second tier was surprisingly different from the previous cavern, not only in its size, but in it's very structure. Running throughout the room was a flowing river of molten rock, which entered through a pipe at the very end of the room to Shikamaru's right, circled in a ring around a platform in the center, before flowing out into a drain at the opposite end of the room. In the middle of the room, a hundred hammers fell upon a hundred anvils, working the glowing ends of a hundred terribly black swords. Shikamaru guessed this was dark iron. He had also been wrong about the warrior tier, after all.

A number of guards stood near the entrance, unsure if they should move up and investigate or remain at their posts. When they saw Shikamaru and his group, they hurried over, demanding to know what had happened.

"A cave-in," said Asuma, huskily.

The guards looked suddenly, and unusually, worried. Shikamaru wondered how many times they had had cave-ins, and he guessed from the looks on their faces that it was not often. They began whispering, and asked what had caused it.

"We don' know," said Shikamaru, attempting the accent as best he could. "We only jus' 'eard it, like yerself. I don' think anyone knows yet."

It must have been the fear that prevented him from noticing Shikamaru's horrible accent. "D'ya think, well, it coulda ben…?"

"Been what?"

"Them? 'As it begun?" The dwarf sounded very worried now, and hurried past Shikamaru, followed closely by his partners.

"What were they talking about…?" Ino whispered, directing her frown to where they had just left.

"Do you think they meant the war?" Lee whispered. The boy stood just next to Shikamaru, and had not since left his side in an attempt to minimize the boy's use of _chakra_.

"Most likely," said Shikamaru. "But with whom are they fighting?"

Nobody had an answer, so they moved on.

* * *

Tenten, Neji, Undrig and Gai reached the final tier just as their allies reached the second. It was pitifully small in comparison to the last two, but there were triple the number of guards, all of whom were dressed far more elegantly than the rest—their armor was polished and gleamed in the artificial light, which came from a large chandelier above them, made entirely from crystal. Their weapons were drawn at all times, and they stood straight up, focusing all of their attention on the empty throne in the center of the room. 

The throne was massive, and easily fit for a king. It stood on top of a pyramid of stairs and was forged from the same gleaming black metal that the guards' armors had been formed of. Spiraling designs and runes had been soldered to the sides, armrests and back, and it was done in such a fashion that the runes seemed to rise from the metal—there seemed little sign of any actual tampering done. In fact, the throne itself did not appear crafted at all. It was as if it had existed there, had grown from the earth in that exact position hundreds of years ago, and since then it had done nothing but _exist_.

Gai glanced about the room a few times. They were positioned near the entrance, but had not been spotted yet. They did not dare rework their forms any further—that would be too much cause for suspicion. They probably had a certain number of guards for each shift, which meant that if they took the forms of those guards, they would have a few too many. But there were easier ways of hiding than simply sneaking around.

He made a series of complicated motions that only Tenten and Neji could decipher, and they both nodded. Undrig glanced at the three of them, confused, until Neji whispered to him to do as they did. Just as he said that, Gai strode out into view, gasping.

The guards turned all at once. Their weapons flew up.

"Cave-in!" Gai gasped. "Upper tunnels…thought His Majesty would…"

"Would what, slave?"

The voice was brittle and sharp—not like a king's. It came from the very far end of the room, from a small passage that Gai had not yet seen. A dwarf walked out, but he was different from the rest—his body was rail-thin and his face sunken and skull-like. His hair and beard were black like his dark iron namesake, and he shuffled—not strode—into the room, glaring like a rat at a piece of cheese. He did not stop until he was standing right next to Gai, where he stood a few inches shorter than the already short shinobi.

"Would what?" he asked again, coldly. The dwarf's black eyes, as beady and small as the tiniest ashes in an old fire pit, moved quickly from Gai's face to Tenten's and Neji's and Undrig's—where they lingered a little longer than usual, before snapping back to Gai again. "Tell your emperor what has happened."

"Cave-in," Gai said, having taken a few moments to "breathe", when he had been looking towards the chamber the king had emerged from. "Above, in the industry channel."

"Which one?" Emperor Dagran Thaurissan snapped, pushing his beaked nose forwards so that it nearly touched Gai's. He was jittery and his soot-colored eyes were constantly moving about Gai's "face" as if attempting to recognize him out of the hundreds of other similar faces.

"The m-main one," Gai said, pretending to tremble.

The emperor's eyes grew a little wider, and he stopped sneering. He started to shake, and he quickly drew back, looking worried.

"Well then fix it! Now! Quickly! Go! Go! GO!" he snapped. He turned, scuttling back into the passage he had emerged from, and did not look back. He muttered as he left.

Gai stood awkwardly for a moment, while the guards returned to their immovable sentry stances. He glanced around at them, but they showed no reaction other than to stare at him hard in a manner that suggested that Gai should do as he was told, or they'd make him do it. He then turned and began moving back towards the passage, and the others slowly began to follow. He stopped at the entrance for a brief moment, and then continued on, very slowly, with Tenten and Undrig trailing a little behind him.

But Neji stayed.

One of the guards glanced at him. He opened his mouth and his brow knitted in preparation for a barking order, but then it froze on his face and the only thing that erupted from his mouth was a soft "_guh!"_ which none of the other guards seemed to hear, because they remained in their upright stances and did not even twitch at the sound. Their expressions didn't change—though, their eyes had. They had become slightly wide, and were shaking, as if struggling to look away from some awesome sight that would inevitably become their doom, which wasn't so far from the truth.

"_Ninpo: Osaekomu Nami no Jutsu."_

Crouched at the very top of the slope, deep in the shadows, Ino could just see the entirety of the room for her _jutsu_ to take effect. She had her hands knit in a complicated seal, and she no longer had her _henge_ in effect. As soon as she had begun the _jutsu_, Shikamaru barked a quick order to Neji, who was already halfway around the room before it reached his ears.

His hands flew in short, simple jabs at their foreheads and chests. Pulses of _chakra_ lanced through their dark iron armor and into the flow of their _chakra_, slicing the minute, nearly invisible vein-like structures to pieces and severing their connections with the organs that they were wrapped around—the brain and heart. It took but a single blow for it to work, and they toppled like stalks of corn hewn by a scythe. Neji finished every one of them, before coming to a quick stop in the middle of the room, slightly out of breath, as the last dwarf fell with a rough clang against the earth. None of them moved again.

Gai, Tenten and Undrig returned a moment later with Shikamaru, Ino, Chouji, Lee and Asuma. Everyone had shed their _henge_, though Undrig kept his Dark Iron makeup on, unbothered by the soot around his face.

"Where's the king?" he rumbled.

Gai pointed down the hall that Dagran had just left through. "There," he said.

"Couple o' you have to stay here," Undrig said. "Figure out what we're gonna do next. They in there?"

"Yes," said Neji, his _Byakugan _blazing. "I can see them all—the boy is in an adjacent room and Emperor Thaurissan is currently speaking with Moira-sama."

"Then you' an' yer team come wit me," said Undrig. "You guys stay our 'ere, okay? Figger out 'ow we're gonna get outta here wit Lady Moira and the Prince."

"No," said Shikamaru. "That'd be better for Neji. My team will go—you guys stay here and plan our root. By the way, where's the giant hole you mentioned before?"

"Beneath us," said Neji. "Beneath this very room. I can see no passage for reaching it, however."

"That's fine then," said Shikamaru. "I just don't want any accidents, or surprises. Let's go."

The passage led them to a small but heavy door, made of dark iron and guilded with ornate beasts—a gryphon in battle with a dragon, and a door handle formed as a leaping lion. Shikamaru slid up to the door, and pressed his ear against it. He heard nothing, though it wasn't surprising. It must have been very thick. He stood back, and for a moment felt stonewalled. What did he do—kick the door open and rush in? Did he wait for Emperor Thaurissan to come back out? For once he wasn't clear what to do, because this situation required almost no strategy—there were few choices and he had no idea how it would turn out anyways. He glanced at everyone else. Ino was staring past him, at the door, but met his eyes briefly. She stared hard at him for a moment, and offered no aid on what to do; Chouji merely nodded when their eyes met—he too left it entirely up to Shikamaru. Asuma and Undrig weren't even looking at him—their eyes were fixed upon the door.

Shikamaru turned back to it. He took a breath, grasped the handle, and pushed.

It gave way easily, so much so that it was open faster than Shikamaru had predicted—it must have been, for someone as small and feeble looking as Thaurissan. The room that greeted them was large and furnished as beautifully as any king's would have been above the ground—beautiful tapestries, woolen rugs, a large four-poster bed with black and gold drapes obscuring most of it, a number of animal skins and heads adorning the walls, and a some beautifully crafted weapons decorating the walls. In the center the Emperor himself stood, in the midst of turning from when Shikamaru had opened the door.

"Wha—" he began, but didn't finish. His eyes widened, and he let out a strangled cry, backing away quickly. He pushed a small woman dressed in an elegant but simple robe with fiery red hair out of the way, so she stumbled and tripped over the edge of a carpet, while he backed against the end of his bed, shouting furiously for his guards.

"They won't come," Shikamaru said, softly. "They've been defeated, and with the cave-in upstairs, there won't be many more coming."

"You!" Thaurissan snarled, pointing a twitching finger. "Human! What are you doing here! How dare you! HOW DARE YOU! How dare you come to this place—my home, my kingdom, you filthy, filthy huma—"

"Tha's enough o' that," Undrig rumbled. He pushed past Shikamaru, making his way towards the short woman, who was currently in the process of picking herself up, looking as if she had just awoken from a deep sleep.

"Lady Moira," Undrig whispered. His voice shook.

The woman stared at him, cocking her head slowly to the side. "Yes? Who might you be?"

"Paladin o' Ironforge," Undrig said, bowing. "At yer service, milady."

"Ironforge? IRONFORGE?" Thaurissan bellowed, skittering across the room so that he stood just a few feet away from Undrig, shaking and twitching in fury, his finger still extended from when he had pointed at Shikamaru. "I knew you weren't one of mine! I knew it! What are you doing here? Why? How did you get in, Ironforge dwarf, how did—"

"Jus' a bit o' makeup, is all," said Undrig, scowling at him. "Looks like ain' so differen', eh? Nobody recognize tha' I wasn' a Dark Iron like yerself, Yer Majesty." He said the last two words as if he was cursing his mortal enemy.

"Why are you—" The Dark Iron Emperor began again, but was again interrupted, this time by Shikamaru.

"We've come to retrieve Moira-sama, and her child, and return them to Ironforge."

Thaurissan's face at once changed from furious hatred to simple confusion.

"What? How did you…? What?"

"Where's the child?" Asuma asked, glancing around. There was another door, just across from the bed, as dark and heavy looking as the previous.

"You wish to take them back? To Ironforge? Why?" Thaurissan snarled. "What purpose does that bring? And how will you?"

Asuma didn't answer, and Shikamaru didn't particularly want to either. Instead, he made for the door.

"Answer me! ANSWER ME!" Thaurissan roared, his face and voice flooding again with rage, his body shaking in small fits, his arm once again raised, his index finger extended. Shikamaru glanced back at him.

"Because it needs a king," he said.

Thaurissan's face changed again. The anger dissolved. Joy and laughter replaced it.

"He's gone? The old fool is gone? MAGNI IS DEAD?" He laughed, his entire body shaking like the victim of a seizure. "He's dead! I can't believe it! He's dead, he's dead, he's dea—"

His interruption came from Undrig this time, but not in words. The dwarf had crossed the distance between them and without warning had driven the head of his hammer into the skinny dwarf's stomach with such force that it threw him back into the wooden footboard of his bed, which caved in with a loud crack. The Emperor slid down, spitting blood and coughing madly.

"Don' talk about—" Undrig began in a snarl, but stopped as something blurred past him.

"Dagran!" Lady Moira cried, dropping down to her husband's side and placing her hands on his wounded chest. Healing _chakra _began to flow from her hands, as she muttered furiously and desperately under her breath soothing words to the pained emperor, who twitched and moaned but didn't speak to her.

Undrig stepped forwards. "Milady, didn' ya 'ear…?"

Moira ignored him, and continued to heal her husband.

Undrig tried again, breathing desperately. "Please, Lady Moira, yer father, 'e's…gone, 'e's gone, Lady Moira, can' you 'ear me?"

Again she didn't respond. But Thaurissan did, with a burbling, pained laugh.

"She does'na care…." He sneered, abandoning his more proper accent in his pain. "She's mine, ya see, mine, mine, MINE! I got 'er, an' that bloody dead fool does'na! 'E's dead! DEAD!" He laughed again, ignoring Moira's whispered pleas to stop speaking, to rest. But he pushed her away, roughly, so she slammed against the wooden poster of the bed, and fell to the floor. Undrig rushed forwards, but stopped when Thaurissan got up, leering, and kicked her in the ribs.

"She's mine!" He said, laughing. "Always was! Always mine!" He kicked her again so she spat up blood, and Undrig roared in fury. The dwarf rushed across the room, but stopped suddenly in mid-stride, and then stood up straight.

Shikamaru stood at the other end of the room, lowering his hands from the _nezumi_ seal.

'_Ninpo: Kagemane no Jutsu'_

"What're ya doin'?" Undrig roared.

"Stopping you from making a mistake," Shikamaru said. "You too," he added to Dagran, who had been frozen as well. He released the _jutsu_. "Let's find the child." He didn't want to think about what he knew they had to do now.

"We won't have to," said Asuma, calmly. "He's here."

Sometime during the last few moments, the unopened iron door had crept open, and a small face appeared within the crack, watching them. Seeing that he had been spotted, the face disappeared for a moment, before the door opened and the child entered the room. The boy—if it was indeed one, because Shikamaru, despite his own pride in his observation skills, was having trouble identifying the gender of the creature that had just stepped into the room—strode in audaciously, its scrunched and nearly bald head held absurdly high with its large, hooked nose pointed almost skywards. Its face was squashed and affixed in a perpetual sneer, it had coal-black eyes like its father but its hair was a strange mix between the brilliant amber of its mother's and the obscene black of its father's, so that it was a murky black with auburn highlights. Its skin was rough looking and the color of light stone, and it was rather rotund, appearing almost wider than it was tall. The only reason that hinted to Shikamaru that it was a boy was its short hair, resembling moss growing on the rocks in a deep cave. Its—_his_—voice then rang out, and it was definitely a boy's voice, though it was nearing a gravel that could have matched a man ten times his age.

"Who are you?" he demanded. He was staring at Shikamaru, of all, but his squinted black eyes focused on the others in due course, before it settled on his mother and father, but only briefly. The boy was soon looking back at Shikamaru, as if the sight of his mother in pain and his father standing over her grinning maniacally was such a common occurrence that it hardly deserved notice any longer.

Shikamaru glanced uneasily at the Emperor for a moment, and Lady Moira. He swallowed.

Undrig was the first to speak, but before that, he bowed graciously to the dwarfling, who noticed it with a puzzled frown, as if no one had bowed to him, the son of an emperor, before.

"Milord," he said, "an 'onor ta' meet you."

"Why?" the little dwarf asked.

"Bein' in the presence o' King Magni's grandson and Lady Moira's son is an 'onor o' course," said Undrig. "But beggin' yer pardon, milord, we can' stay much longer."

The boy frowned. "What? What are you talking about? Why can't I stay? Where am I going?" he looked at his father, very briefly. The Emperor did not speak.

"We've come ta' take you back ta Ironforge, you an' your mother," said Undrig. He paused, knowing that the next few moments would be the clincher—would the boy accept the offer and return quietly, or would they be forced to do what Benedictus had told them should only be a last resort?

Would they need to kidnap him?

The boy hardly noticed the words being spoken, and only reacted a few seconds later, when he tore his eyes away from Shikamaru, Asuma, Ino and Chouji. It was the first time he had ever seen humans, evidently. It was obvious that he would be surprised by their appearance, but he seemed to be taking it far better than any of them had expected—he was evidently not as much of a child as they had previously thought. Shikamaru could see it now as well—behind the beetle black eyes there was a certain cunning and cleverness that he had evidently inherited from his rat-like father. He had little idea of what to make of Shikamaru and his group.

Finally, he spoke.

"Take me back?" he finally said. "That isn't possible. I've never been to Ironforge. Why would I want to go there?"

Undrig licked his lips. He didn't need to choose the words because they had been on his lips from the moment he had seen the boy.

"Ta become king."

The boy focused all of his attention on Undrig now. "What?"

"King Magni—yer grandfather—" He ignored the obvious sniggers of joy from Thaurissan behind him, "—has jus' been…assassinated." He had no idea why he said that instead of simply "killed" but it seemed more appropriate for a child's ears. "An' wit yer mother an' you here, Ironforge 'as no king. Tha's why we're 'ere, milord—to bring you back ta Ironforge, so that ya can become king, yer mother too, o' course." He glanced at Moira, then, who had gotten up, and was staring at both of them in a way that made Undrig sick to his stomach. It was a hauntingly vacant look—her eyes were wide and her face framed with a pleasant but unnerving smile, considering she had just been brutally beaten and the evidence showed in her bleeding lip and bruised forehead. She didn't look like the Moira he remembered—standing beside her father when he addressed the kingdom for war talks and announcements, flowing with vivacity and a powerful gleam in her eye that none of the precious gems they mined could have matched, nor could the hottest of forges have ever compared. A smile had never been far from her lips then, but it was a wholly different smile than this.

This was terrifying.

"She doesn't need to come."

The words didn't come from Shikamaru's mouth, though he had been thinking something like it, nor did they come from Thaurissan's in a bitter attempt to assert his dominance over Moira once again.

They came from the dwarfling, who was not looking at his mother, but rather at Shikamaru again, in a sort of fascinated way like you observed an ape performing tricks in a zoo.

"Wha'…?" Undrig said, uncomprehending.

"I said she doesn't need to come," the child said. "There's no point in her coming anyways, since she doesn't really have a mind of her own anyways. You might as well take my father too, because that's all she is—my father's puppet. Isn't that right father?"

Thaurissan grinned, but it came less quickly than before, Shikamaru noticed. And it was almost as unnerved as the looks Ino, Chouji and Asuma were displaying towards the boy.

The boy went on, moving swiftly past the subject of his mother. "I am to become king then? How strange, I had no idea. I didn't think that I would become king ever, but if I can get away from this place, I'll happily go." He smiled, and turned. "But let me get some things, first, since I'll probably need them when I—"

"Hey," said Shikamaru. "You don't care?"

The dwarfling turned to him, seeming delighted to here him speak, probably to the extent that he had no idea what Shikamaru had just said."

"Care about what?"

"Your mother," Shikamaru said, calmly. He glanced at Moira again, but her look hadn't changed, although she had stood up, and was beginning to totter towards the boy with an affectionate smile that seemed slightly more genuine. "You don't care if she isn't coming?"

"Why would I?" the dwarfling said, passively. "She isn't my mother—she's my father's puppet. Just a puppet. What kind of mother is that?"

"Wha—" Shikamaru began, but was cut off. Thaurissan had worked himself into a rage again that seemed to equal the heat of the forges burning far above them.

"How dare you! Boy! You think you are going with them? DO YOU? DO YOU? You're staying right here, brat! I MEAN IT!"

The boy stared at him. "I don't think you have a choice, do you father?" He glanced at Shikamaru. "Does he?"

Shikamaru forced down the needles of worry, and the feeling of wrongness that he now felt. This wasn't how it was supposed to have gone. True, he hadn't truly known what to expect, but he hadn't expected this. The boy didn't seem like a child at all—he was cold, impassive, almost frighteningly like someone Shikamaru hadn't thought about it some time.

Uchiha Sasuke.

The way the dwarfling spoke—properly, without any sort of Dwarven accent, plus the fact of his age (though he conceded he knew nothing of Dwarven developmental stages, so this could have been common, but he doubted it) and the subjects the boy spoke of with such a dispassionate drawl—could only speak for a prodigy. Shikamaru had only known two proper prodigies in his life, one of whom he disliked, the other of which was in the other room currently seeking a way out, and he had known neither of them in their childhood, but he imagined that this was what they had been like. In fact, that's probably what Uchiha Itachi had been like, before he had killed his entire clan.

It was frightening.

"Does he?" the dwarfling repeated.

"No," Shikamaru finally said. "I suppose not."

"Then I'll get my things," he said. "How are we leaving?"

"We haven't decided yet," said Shikamaru. He glanced at Asuma, who was frowning as well. "Ino, restrain the Emperor, we're going to—"

A curious smell had arisen, and it just then caught Shikamaru's attention. It was an oily, fleshy smell like cooked meat, but with an earthy smell, a little acrid, as if pitch were burning too. It was not of any variety he had smelled in a _hibachi_ steakhouse that he'd been to with Chouji, Ino and Asuma in their _genin_ days, nor had he smelt it anywhere else in his world. Its source became apparent just a moment later, when smoke began to arise from it, and the hideous sizzling sounds began.

Lady Moira Bronzebeard was smoking. It came from her skin, almost red in color, but with more brown and black as well, rising from her flesh which began to bubble and blister and soon slough from her bones as easily as the most tender of steak meats. Her hair began to catch fire, as did her white robe, and then her flesh, while her eyes sizzled and frothed and eventually burst like juicy, overstuffed sausages being pricked with a fork. Flames coalesced around her quickly disintegrating form, forming an aura around her, and keeping her shape and holding her bones together so that they were—blackened like coal—just visible beneath the white-hot flames.

That's when she spoke. The voice was less a voice—it was more a rhythmic roaring of fire, up and down, forming such minute differences in tone and pitch, that it had successfully duplicated the most hideous voice Shikamaru had ever heard in his life. Each word seemed separate of itself, a whole power in itself.

"_**WHAT…IS…THIS?"**_

Thaurissan screamed. He was backed against his bed again, shaking and wailing.

Moira, or what was left of her, turned her attention to him.

"_**WHERE…ARE…THE…MATERIALS? **_

_**THE…WAR…IS…ALMOST…UPON…US. I…NEED…THE…MATERIALS…WORM."**_

Thaurissan was now wailing like a child, as everyone watched the beast in horror. Nobody could move, could think, could react to what had just happened, least of all Undrig, who was standing close to the flaming Bronzebeard, unbelieving of the sight.

"Milady…?" he whispered, softly, but it was lost in Thaurissan's wails.

"WHY HER? WHY HER?" the Emperor screamed, standing up and tottering forwards. "You promised…not to take…her! Why! WHY!"

"_**YOU…ARE…ALL…THE…SAME." **_The beast said. But then, it seemed to turn—the skeleton in the inferno was suddenly facing Shikamaru, because he could now see both hollow eye sockets, belchingfire, and the full view of bare ribcage.

"_**HUMANS…**_" it said. "_**HAS…HE…ENLISTED…YOU…AS…WELL? PROMISES…OF…POWER…UNENDING? SPIES…FOR…HIM?" **_The fire then issued a series of minute explosions, each one making it flare slightly brighter, and soon Shikamaru came to realize that it was almost a sort of laughter.

"_**NOTHING…FOR…YOU…THERE…YOU…WILL…ALL…MEET…YOUR…ENDS…AS…HE…WILL…"**_

"NO!" screamed Thaurissan, leaping upon the flaming remains of his wife and embracing them; the flames wrapped around him too, obscuring his form in blackness, before it reduced him to as little as his wife, but they soon feel in a heap, while Moira's remained suspended.

"_**YOU…WILL…SEE…IT…FIRST." **_The demon said to Shikamaru and laughed again, before the fire abruptly went out, and Moira's ashes fell in a heap next to Thaurissan's, so that they became indistinguishable.

Shikamaru twisted around, and streaked across the room. Without warning, he lifted the dwarfling up, and roared for everyone to run. They cleared the room, and had made it just down the hallway before the rumbling began.

In the throne room, something had happened. The stone floor was falling away, and the ceiling was crumbling. Gai, Neji, Lee and Tenten stood near the doorway, roaring at them to hurry up. They had to go! Now! The room was crumbling, the passage leading up falling away just as much as the floor beneath them. They only had a few scant seconds to move, to get up and out of danger, before—

Shikamaru took a flying leap across the room. He didn't make it halfway across before a falling rock struck him in the side of the head, and he fell into blackness.

* * *

The beginning of the Blackrock Team's troubles. More will soon follow, it seems. 

I want you guys to know that I have taken all of your criticism to heart—this chapter contained little humor, but some respite, and that's what you guys seemed to have wanted. Some of you think I'm being a bit hard on my characters—well, yes, that is true, but that's the entire point of the conflict, isn't it? A lot is going to happen in the next few chapters, believe me. Just try to stay with me, okay?

That being said, I presented this extra-long chapter because I will probably not be able to post anything in the next week or two—I'm returning to school (I'm on a plane as I write this) and will be readjusting (by that I mean partying) and will probably not be in much shape to write or post. Whatever the case, look for a chapter near the beginning of October, or a little after.

Sorry to leave you with a cliff-hanger. Ain't I a stinker?

Well, hope you guys enjoyed that, and leave reviews if you can spare them, since they don't take that long and help be make it a better story for everyone.

See you!

General Grievous

**Next chapter: Ravenholdt Manor, The Molten Core, Stratholme, Southshore, and Northrend.**

**Scroll of Seals:**

_Ninpo: Osaekomu Nami no Jutsu (_Immobilizing (lit. To immobilize) Wave Technique)

_Ninpo: Rouzeki no Jutsu (_Mass Confusion (lit. riot) Technique)

_Ninpo: Kagemane no Jutsu (_Shadow Imitation Technique)


	24. Ravenholdt, Southshore, and Molten Core

_Disclaimer_:_ i dnt own nrto or wrld of wrcft._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

The air whistled in the mountains above Hillsbrad, through the trees, though it was quickly approaching a howl as they neared the summit of the winding path that they had been on for more than a day. The path was not so much a path however, and more just a scant hint that someone or something had beforehand passed through this place, ascending the mountain in the most indirect route possible. Kakashi did not deviate from the path, afraid that if they did then whatever _genjutsu_ these assassins had set up to protect their mountain retreat would activate and they would never find their way out again. The path had obviously been created by someone who only expected those who were the best at tracking, the best at noticing the most minute details no matter how apparently unconnected and insignificant they might be. Sakura herself was dazzled by their teacher's ability to pick up these details, many of which she did not notice herself (and she'd always prided herself on her observational skills and intelligence). Naruto, of course, was hopeless in noticing these, though he didn't stop trying as they went. He observed what Kakashi did, and imitated, and though he would often spot the continuation of the path—a broken leaf, or perhaps a slight shift in the general disarray of the leafy floor—he wouldn't realize it was something significant until Kakashi had pointed it out. 

"Word of advice," Kakashi told him, after a few hours of this. "Overlook nothing, regardless of its insignificance."

Naruto squinted at him. "That's a bit difficult, you know?"

"Didn't say it was easy, but it's necessary."

Naruto nodded, and fell silent.

They spoke little as they ascended the path—Naruto and Sakura were near the back, with Kakashi up front and Yamato and Sai just behind him. Sai was listening intently to Yamato, who was whispering something that neither Naruto nor Sakura could hear above the wind and the other sounds of the forest. The boy's face was, unusually, unreadable. He had become much better at showing everyone what he was feeling in the past few days, though it was still rather exaggerated and he still had a penchant for asking embarrassing questions that no one would answer. He had also given Sakura a nickname, which she'd responded to by threatening both him and Naruto with death if they ever spoke it aloud again.

Naruto, however, thought it was cute.

In the past few days, since they had arrived in Hillsbrad—staying a single night in the decrepit town of Tarren Mill, where they had been met by a number of Forsaken who had given them the general area of the Manor and had served them some rather grotesque cuisine that turned out to be spider meat (apparently that was a delicacy among them, usually served with a side of bear liver and drizzled in a sauce made from spider venom and yeti milk; only Naruto had been able to finish his meal, having long gotten used to their strange eating habits). They'd spent a few hours there, resting from the journey, before they'd set off again, taking two days to reach the base of the mountain, having crossed a rushing river and an open, rocky plain that gradually sloped up. The path had been found between a pair of trees no different from the rest, only identified by the lingering smell of humans, as well as the same smell that they had met in the tunnels of Ironforge.

"That confirms it," Kakashi had said. "We'll just gather as much evidence as we can—maybe they left something behind that could be of use to us."

Since then, they had done nothing but climb the mountains—so far it had taken them two days, as it was quite a large mountain, and according to Kakashi (from his frequent conversations with Pakkun) they would reach it within the next few hours.

In the back, Naruto and Sakura occasionally spoke, but mostly gazed around the forest, in a general attempt to observe as well as their teacher. When they did speak, it was about more general things.

"How's your training going?" Sakura asked, as she was never present when Naruto was training, having been practicing herself.

"Pretty good," said Naruto. "It hurts, though." He flashed her a smile. "Glad you're around."

"Thank your girlfriend for those books," said Sakura, not a little haughtily. "Or it'd be harder to."

"She's not my girlfriend," said Naruto, flushing.

Occasionally, however, they did touch upon heavier subjects.

Sakura just shrugged. It didn't matter to her either way, or so she liked to think. She didn't believe it could work out, anyways, even if they did get together. They were literally worlds apart.

"I thought you liked Kira-chan now, anyways," said Naruto, glancing sideways at her, and pushing the branches of a far-reaching tree out of his face. "So why do you get so angry?"

"I'm not telling you," said Sakura. "And you're wrong—I _do _like Kira, and my getting angry has less to do with her, anyways."

"What? Why can't you just tell me?"

"Figure it out for yourself!"

Naruto pouted, but this didn't last long, nor did Sakura's apparent fury. She calmed down quickly and was soon back to talking about various things, such as the information in the books, Konoha, and everything that didn't touch upon the subject that would be taboo between them until they had done something about it.

The books that Kira had given her were fountains of information—they contained a lot of things she knew, but the were many more things that she didn't, and indeed, she didn't think had even been discovered in her world. Medical procedures that were so ingenious, but so difficult, that nearly every time she picked one of them up, she found herself astounded.

Kira had told her that much of the medical techniques in the book had been developed by a powerful city of magi that had since gone into total seclusion, and indeed, didn't even have contact with anyone else any more. The city of Dalaran, rather near where Sakura was right now, in fact, had been responsible for most of the powerful _jutsu_ that now existed in Azeroth, and any book that contained their techniques was so valuable that they could easily finance the furnishing of a castle as large as Stormwind with gold and silk. It was said that those born in Dalaran were gifted with an incredible ability to create and learn _jutsu_ and manipulate _chakra_, almost as if they were another race entirely. For a long time, however, nothing had been seen or heard of them. They had locked themselves away at the end of the Third War when their city had been attacked and razed to the ground; they were now inside a shield so powerful that it would take thousands of skilled magi or shinobi to bring it down, if it were possible at all.

Kira had correctly assessed that not only would Sakura benefit from the powerful techniques the book contained, but from the history of said techniques, which were all painstakingly chronicled in the books. Suffice to say, Sakura had thought that the trip up had been far too short, and whenever she picked up one of the books, she found it hard to put it down, so much so that Yamato had to keep a careful eye on her whenever she was reading, so that she didn't zone out and forget about her own practical training (which, due to the injuries Naruto was sustaining in his own training, was rather necessary).

Even better, Kira had written notes in the margins of the books to herself, containing shortcuts in the making of seals (which Sakura doubted she'd found out herself, and had most likely come from Benedictus), little tips in how to guide the _chakra_ written in far less scholarly language so that Sakura was able to understand techniques that she had thought might require explanation, and occasionally a whole new _jutsu_, or at least the concept of one. Sakura was amazed—she'd created only one technique herself, so far, but Kira was well on her way to creating a few that could greatly benefit the medical practice, especially Sakura's chosen profession.

Sakura was also able to map out Kira's own course of study, which seemed to take place over a series of years. But then, about halfway through one of the larger books, it came much quicker, and the notes contained more current information some of which Sakura could understand, and even relate to. Sometimes the notes were not simply notes, and seemed to be more like a personal diary, containing snippets of information about Kira's life, her thoughts, and her feelings. It was sometimes so personal that Sakura felt almost guilty reading them, as if she were peeking into Kira's personal diary that she had snuck out from under the girl's pillow while she was sleeping. She kept reading, however. She wondered why Kira had given it to her, knowing that it contained so many things. Had she wanted Sakura to know all of these personal details, some of which she might not have even told Naruto? She couldn't believe that Kira would be so absent-minded.

So why?

They exited the forest, and reached a cave.

The mouth was wide and dark, but the cave itself was not very large, and consisted of a single passageway only a couple dozen yards long—they could even see the exit. There was nothing odd about the cave itself, as they passed through, save for a large wooden box that sat halfway in, in the middle of their path. Its top was smashed in, and there didn't appear to be anything left inside.

"What's this, do you think?" Sakura asked, frowning.

"Probably to tempt the more greedy," said Kakashi, tilting his head slightly to the side. "Though it being in such an obvious location, I don't know why they would—it's possible that it held some sort of _jutsu_ which required you to open it to pass, though that seems to have been broken with the chest."

At the end of the cave was a field, surrounded by walls of rock, and a small sloping hill, which took them to the former manor of the Ravenholdt Assassin's Guild.

The house was mostly ruins—a skeleton of charred wood and fallen stone, surrounded by a scarcely intact outer wall that could have easily stopped an invading army. A small path crept up to the ruined building, branching off slightly to the side and leading soon to a cultured field where crops must have been grown, beside which was a stretch of bare earth where training dummies had been set up.

"Start looking," said Kakashi, with a sigh. "There's not much ground to be covered, so do it thoroughly."

Nobody, upon seeing such devastation, could contest.

* * *

Naruto and Sakura searched the fields, which had remained relatively untouched. Sakura didn't expect to find anything there, but it _was_ possible that the killers had crossed it at some point, and had left some clue behind. The trek upwards, however, had shown her that she would likely not recognize it if she found it, which was why she continually conferred with Naruto on everything she saw. It helped. 

"They didn't leave the way they came in," she said, aloud.

"How do you know?"

"There are footprints in a steady line all the way across the field," she said. "Two pairs."

"So there were two of them, then?"

She nodded, uneasily. "How could only two people do this much damage? I thought these people were supposed to be the best assassins out there?"

"Myrdraxxis said that they were not much better than any other assassin's guild, they were just larger," said Naruto. "But that's just as strange. How could just two guys defeat all of them?"

At Sakura's shrug, they returned to checking the rest of the field, which showed nothing more—they returned to the manor, but on the way, Naruto was struck by a horrible idea.

"Hey, Sakura-chan," he said.

"Yeah?"

"You don't think it was…" he glanced back at the field, as if expecting the killers to be lurking somewhere beneath the soil, waiting for him to speak their names.

"Who?"

"Well you said there were two of them, right? Who do we know that are strong enough to beat dozens of skilled shinobi, even when there are only two of them?"

Sakura frowned a moment, and then it struck her.

"That's…" she stared at him uneasily. "That can't be right. Why would they do something like this? I thought their goal was to…?"

"Me too," said Naruto. "Let's talk to Kakashi-sensei, maybe he knows a bit more. It'd be better to talk to Ero-sennin, but that's impossible right now."

"Do you think it could be them?"

"Maybe," he mumbled, frowning. "But it's weird. Why would they do something like this?"

* * *

The manor was bare of bodies, though the stench of death lingered. The first thing that Kakashi noticed when he entered was the blood, strewn about the floor and some of the portions of the wall that had somehow remained standing. The blood was long dried and had become almost black, but it still stank and there was so much of it that it was more like a new coating of paint. 

"It didn't last very long, did it?" Yamato mumbled, glancing around. "It probably took them a couple of minutes to do the worst damage—they must have been immensely powerful."

"Stronger than I thought, at least," said Kakashi. "To cause this much destruction, especially to trained professionals…."

"There could have been many of them."

"Could have been," said Kakashi.

"You don't sound so sure."

"We'll see," said Kakashi. "I think Naruto and Sakura have something to tell us."

Indeed, the two had arrived, with Sai in tow. The boy had been checking around the walls of the castle, and around the outer edge of the mountaintop.

"What did you find?" Kakashi asked. He noticed Naruto and Sakura's troubled looks, so he directed the question mainly at them.

"As far as we could tell," said Sakura, glancing at Naruto briefly, "there were only two assassins."

Yamato's eyebrows rose considerably. "Two?"

"Two sets of footprints," said Naruto. "And that got us thinking a bit…Kakashi-sensei, do you think it was Akatsuki?"

Kakashi blinked.

"Truthfully, I didn't even consider it," said Kakashi, but his brow furrowed and he began to scratch his chin. "But I can see how you thought that—and it's worrisome that there's no way we can disprove that theory."

"What was there purpose, then?" said Yamato. "Could there have been something they wanted here?"

"Maybe," said Kakashi. "But as far as we know, their only goal, currently, is the capture of the _bijuu_. There certainly wasn't a _bijuu_ here, that's for sure."

"Why not?" Naruto asked. He was not looking at Kakashi anymore, but all around as if some trace of the creature was there. When his gaze settled on Kakashi's again, the man spoke.

"Because all nine _bijuu_ are, and have always been, in our world. I believe that the majority of them are accounted for, or at least the intelligence reports say. Which means that they would have nothing here, that we know of, that could be of any use to them."

"They stole everything valuable, though," said Sakura. "Maybe they want money."

"That's possible," said Kakashi. "But again, it seems unlikely—Akatsuki's plans don't seem to revolve much around money, and at this moment their only goal appears to be the _bijuu_, at least in our world. In this one, of course, it could be very different, especially since we have no idea how strong their influence is." He frowned again, and paced around a section of the wall that had fallen. He glanced around the entire room again as he did, taking in nothing but the sound of the whistling wind and the looks on his comrades faces—all confused—as they glanced about the room and attempted as best they could to spot something they had missed before.

"What do we do now, then?" said Yamato. "There's no point in staying any longer, especially when there doesn't seem to be anything more here that what we already know, and the answers it did provide us come with even more questions."

"Seems to be the case," Kakashi said, rather distractedly, staring hard at a section of the floor. Then, he reached up and shoved aside his forehead protector, revealing his left eye.

"Then again," he said with a widening smile, "maybe not."

Everyone's attention snapped to the silver-haired man. Naruto spoke first.

"What is it?" he asked

"_Chakra,_" said Kakashi. "On the floor."

"What?" Sakura looked at the floor, where Kakashi was staring, but saw nothing. "What do you mean?"

Kakashi bent down, and gestured to a small dark smear near the edge of the fallen piece of wall he had been pacing around earlier. It crept out just beyond the edge of the wall, clearly blood, though long dried and almost covered by a thin sheet of dust, which made it appear faded. "That blood," he said. "It has some traces of _chakra_ in it. Powerful _chakra, _too, but very black, like it came from a demon of some sort."

"Do you think—" Naruto began.

"Not at all," said Kakashi. "I said it seems like it might have come from a demon, but I don't think it did. That's human blood, if I'm not mistaken, and for some odd reason, it still contains traces of life energy as well."

"That's impossible," said Sakura, though she didn't sound at all sure, the longer she stared at the spot. "Life energy disappears when a person dies—that's why they call it _life_ energy."

"I'm well aware of that," said Kakashi, with a quick smile. "But that doesn't change the fact that there is indeed life energy still present in that symbol."

"Symbol?" Sai said. "It appears to be nothing more than a smudge."

"To you, at least," said Kakashi. "But the _chakra_ forms a symbol, about five feet in diameter, mostly covered by the wall section." He pointed to the other sides of the rubble, "See? You can see more edges of it there. It's not a very complicated symbol either—just a black circle with a single triangle in the middle, as if somebody were trying to finish a pentagram, but forgot."

"So what does that mean?" Naruto mumbled, staring hard at the piece of rubble, as if trying to see the symbol beneath it. "What's a symbol like that mean?"

"Who knows?" said Kakashi. "But it's a start."

"I'll tell Tsuwabuki, then," Naruto said. "Hopefully Benedictus-jiisan will know what it means, if anything."

"It means something," said Kakashi, "that I'm sure of. I think it belonged to the one of the two assassins that killed Magni. Perhaps, even, the one responsible for the mysterious wounds. It might be part of some elaborate _jutsu_." He glanced at the sky. "But I think that's it, at least. We found something, and hopefully it'll help, but the last chance we have is in Southshore. We'll head back to Tarren Mill, and then head to Southshore from there."

They left the ruined building and the quiet mountaintop, now as silent as the grave and as dead as its contents.

* * *

Shikamaru awoke to the smell of ash and sulphur. It was so strong that he flinched and gagged, a stray thought passing through his head as to how the hell he had managed to stay asleep for so long with such a noxious smell assaulting his nose. His eyes opened but he quickly shut them, as a searing heat dried them out and made it impossible to see for a moment. He coughed and tried to sit up, but his back and leg were on fire so he couldn't even do that. The ground was solid, but hot as a stone road on a sunny day in the middle of summer, making it uncomfortable now that he was awake and at least partially coherent. But he lay still, coughed a few more times, and then opened his eyes to what he was quite sure was Hell. 

He was in a vast chamber, or at least he thought so at first. It was so huge that it could have fit an entire tower in it—the ceiling was so high it might have been a second sky. But it quickly realized that the cavern was not actually a chamber—it was long and narrow, and when he finally managed to sit up and turn his head, he saw it stretch on into complete darkness. It was an immense tunnel. The rock was completely volcanic, and the ceiling dripped with boiling red streams of fire, which would cool as they traveled down the walls, or dripped into a puddle on the nearly flat cave floor.

He moved his hands, warily, to discover them covered in black soot and covered in small cuts and bruises that had nearly dried, though they ached as much as his back. His left arm burned whenever he moved it, even slightly, and when he touched it he found a huge gash down the side, likely due to a fallen rock or because of the impact—which he then realized should have killed him.

His head glanced up, as he suddenly remembered what had happened. The ceiling was intact, however, save for the minor cracks leaking molten rock. He then glanced around and to his side, coming face-to-face, far quicker than he would have liked, with Maito Gai.

"You're awake." His voice was uncomfortably grim, and his eyes were narrowed in gravity of the situation. The man's face was blackened by the same soot Shikamaru's hands had been, and at least partially burned as well. His shinobi vest was ripped in several places, and just as dirty as his face.

"Gai-sensei," he said, and coughed a few more times. Gai handed him a small canteen, and he took a few gulps, before handing it back and trying again. "Gai-sensei, what happened?"

"We fell," said Gai. He jabbed a finger behind him. "Somewhere in that direction, if I recall. It was a long drop, long enough that you would have died if you'd fallen the whole way. Thank Chouji for the save—he was able to keep most of us alive at the expense of a few larger injuries."

Shikamaru worriedly glanced around. Behind him, tucked as near to the wall as could be, in a small indentation, Ino, Neji, Tenten, Lee, Undrig and Asuma were sitting before a fallen Chouji. The boy was unconscious, and his face was heavily bruised and his shirt and armor had been removed and laid to the side. His chest was covered in blood and burns but the boy appeared to be breathing, even as Shikamaru struggled over, wheezing as worry filled his stomach almost to the point of bursting.

"Chouji!" he hissed.

"He's fine," said Ino, shaking her head. "It looks worse than it is, but most of that black stuff is just soot, not blood. Undrig-san and I healed most of the bigger wounds, so this stupid lump could live." She said stupid with affection, and smiled at the large young man laid before her. "He's an idiot, though—he fell nearly on top of a few stalagmites and almost rolled into a pool of lava."

Shikamaru let out a sigh, and slumped back, coughing a few more times. "Is everyone…?"

"We're fine," said Neji, attempting to restrain a surprising amount of bitterness from his voice. "You were hit on the way down by a rock, while the majority of us managed to avoid that. It's lucky, as well—if any more of us had been knocked out, we would have been dead. You've been out about two hours."

Shikamaru nodded, wiping sweat from his brow and trying to restrain another cough. He glanced back at Gai, and then thought of something else. He looked around.

"Where's…?"

Neji pointed without a word, and Shikamaru followed it to where the Dwarven child sat, tucked up close to an older stalagmite; he was so dirtied with ash that he could have been merely an addition to the rock formation. He had buried his head in his enrobed arms, and was still as stone.

Shikamaru a horrible image suddenly flashed through Shikamaru's mind—a burning skeleton, speaking in words not from this world.

"Oh God…" he mumbled under his breath. "So I guess…Lady Moira is dead, then?"

Undrig's face was hidden mostly behind his beard and shaggy hair, which now covered his eyes. "Aye."

"What…why did?"

"Told ya 'afore," said Undrig. "That thing don' give a damn about life, so it don' make any difference between some no name dwarf an' the king and queen themselves. Probably happened by random chance, unless it needed to talk ta' the king directly. Musta' been pretty urgent."

"You're taking it well." Shikamaru said, shakily. He coughed.

Undrig looked briefly up, so that his eyes could be seen beneath the veil of dirty black hair. The dwarf looked decades older. His eyes were clouded and cold.

"Ye ain' lookin' too hard, then," the dwarf said. "But no point in grievin' now, is there? Got somethin' to do 'afore we can do all that, don' we?"

Shikamaru nodded. He turned back to the child, and then, very slowly, began to crawl towards him. He waited until he was about a meter from the boy before speaking.

"You alright?"

The boy looked up. His face was the same—eyes glinting with a frost quite out of place with the general setting.

"I'm fine," he said, waspishly. "I would have survived the fall anyways—I'm a dwarf, our bones are far less breakable than humans, or so I've read." He glared hard at Shikamaru. "You're responsible for this, aren't you? You're responsible for bringing me down here, for getting me mixed up with that horrible monster, aren't you? I though you were supposed to be protecting me, and bringing me back to my kingdom?"

"I was," Shikamaru said.

"Congratulations, then, at screwing it up!" the boy shouted. "We're going to die down here, you know? It's not possible for us to live any longer."

"Calm down," Shikamaru said, and coughed again. "Nothing is—"

"You don't understand at all," the boy said, dropping his head back into his arms and not looking up again.

"We went through the same thing," said Ino. "Though he should thank you, at the least, for taking most of the damage from the fall. You wouldn't let go of him until we had safely landed."

Shikamaru merely nodded. "How far away from the entrance are we?"

"That depends on what you define as entrance," said Asuma, blowing a ring of smoke into the air before snuffing out his cigarette on the wall, and lighting another. "The big chamber we entered through the fall is about thirty minutes in that direction," he pointed down the tunnel, to his left. "But that's hardly an entrance, and there's little point in going back, due to the danger."

"Danger?" Shikamaru said.

"There were things there," said Asuma. "Giant rock men, if you'd believe it. They appeared almost as soon as we fell, so we had to run to get away—they stopped chasing after about ten minutes or so."

"Rock men?" Shikamaru said. "What?"

Asuma shrugged. "Don't ask."

"They're golems," mumbled Undrig, hoarsely. "Creatures made o' nothin' but rock and _chakra_ an' a bit o' life energy. Dunno how they were made so big, though, 'specially since it'd take a lot o' life energy to make all that rock move. Then again, we're talkin' about the Lord of Elemental Fire 'ere, so it ain't so surprisin'."

"Do you know if there is anyway out of here?" Shikamaru asked, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt.

"Doubt it," Undrig said. "Be na point, would there? Na Dark Iron dwarves down 'ere— just rock and elementals. They have na reason to make an entrance or exit." He scratched his beard, looking at Shikamaru with grave eyes, barren of hope. "Dunno if we'd survive down 'ere very long, anyways. Water'll run out quick, an' there's na food na drink down here, unless you eat fire an' brimstone."

"Then what do we do?" Ino snapped. The girl was glaring at the dwarf, angered by his pessimism.

"Dunno," said Undrig. He shrugged, and said no more.

Ino slumped back, but looked no less furious. She stared at the obsidian floor, her eyes sharp like daggers, her brow knitted as she thought of the same thing Shikamaru did—what they would do next, how they would get out.

"Can't we just climb back up the hole using _chakra_?" Shikamaru suddenly said.

"We're talking a walk, straight up, of about a mile or so," said Asuma. "I don't know about you, but I don't have the stamina for that. That technique isn't meant to be used for long distances, anyways. That's why we don't run across the sea, you know."

"If we all had Naruto's _chakra_, maybe," said Neji.

"Be better if we 'ad an hearthstone," said Undrig. "Surprised they didn' give yeh one 'afore yeh left."

"What's a hearthstone?" said Shikamaru.

"Don' matter much now. You woulda known if yeh'd gotten one."

"There is no use in wishing," said Gai, shaking his head. " It would be our best bet to find some other way of getting out—there has to be, especially if this beast ever intended to fight this war that we have learned of."

"How do you know about that?"

Everyone turned to the boy, who had picked up his head and was glaring now at Gai.

"How do you know about the war?" the child said again.

"Everyone was mentioning it above. What is it?" Shikamaru said.

The child's eyes narrowed a little, but his face turned white so he hid his head again. He didn't speak again for a while.

Shikamaru inched closer, desperate to know. "What is it? Is it soon?"

"I don't know," said the dwarf child. "Nobody knew when it was, but it was something everyone feared, especially my father, because he knew that once it happened he would have very little chance of surviving. He wanted to hold onto his kingdom as long as he could."

"Who's it between?" Shikamaru was now very close to the child, so that he might have been able to embrace him had he thought the child needed it. But the child's eyes remained the same, even as he spoke the next few words with a sort of reverence that one leaves for gods and kings.

"The Firelord," said the dwarf child. "And the black wings."

Shikamaru frowned. "Black wings? What are those?"

"The things that live above us," the child said. "In the Spire, where we can never go. They rule half of this kingdom, really, and that's why the Firelord wants to fight them, so that he can conquer the entire mountain and then move on. It's why, too, I was so eager to leave this place, even though I had no idea who all of you were, or even if you were telling the truth."

"How old are you, kid?" Asuma called from behind Shikamaru.

The child leaned to the side to look at Asuma, scowling. "Why?"

"I've never heard a child speak like you have," he said. "And no offense, it's a little frightening."

"If you're scared by this," the child said, turning away. "Then you'll wet your pants when the war begins. That's what my dad would've done, too, even after he'd relieved his frustration on my mother."

Asuma didn't answer. Shikamaru sighed, and drew back a little, to stare at the child as if he were a foreign substance. How could a child talk like that, he wondered? His first guess had been correct, then—this child was a prodigy, not unlike Sasuke or Neji. It was disgusting to hear the words of an adult fall from a child's mouth, even more so the words of an adult who had lost any notion of companionship or love.

The child's voice was dead, not unlike his mother and father. But Shikamaru knew that it had been dead long before then.

But something nagged him. He wished he was Naruto, suddenly, or at least had Naruto's innate understanding of people. He wanted to know what was wrong with this boy, even though it appeared so clear he knew it was different—deeper and more complex.

"What's your name?" he suddenly said, realizing that he didn't know it.

The child looked up at him, very briefly.

"Thoraan," the boy said.

Shikamaru nodded. He then turned back to the others.

"Ino, could you heal my arm, and could somebody get me a soldier pill? This place is too troublesome, so I figure we should leave, you know?"

While Thoraan stared at him as if he were a moron, his friends broke into gales of laughter, Ino especially.

"Suppose you can't play _shogi_ here, can you?" Asuma said, lighting up another cigarette and getting to his feet.

"Or eat at a barbecue steakhouse," said Ino, with a sidelong glance at Chouji, who immediately awoke at the word "barbecue" and was sitting up by the end of "steakhouse."

"Did somebody say steak?" the boy mumbled, blinking blearily around.

Everyone laughed for a moment, save Thoraan, who simply stared at the foreign sound in what he had assumed would be a barren, hopeless and final world. Gai too did not laugh, though his gaze was far more warm than Thoraan's, and his face was lit with the brightest smile as he looked upon his students and friends, who even in times like these, did not look down, but merely forward, as the young should.

"Yosh!" Gai suddenly yelled, pumping a fist into the air. "Then let's get started!"

* * *

Southshore was a small town on the coast of the Hillsbrad Foothills, so sparsely populated that it could no longer be called a town; it was more a garrison for the soldiers of Stormwind, used primarily during the previous war to combat the rising Forsaken menace in the area. When that war ended, it's purpose became less defined, and the soldiers who had previously occupied it could get away with far more than others of their kind could in cities closer to Stormwind. It became a den of passing thieves and highwaymen, sometimes even murderers and professional killers. It allied itself with the Assassin's Guild of the area, mostly for protection, though occasionally the mayor of the town— Magistrate Henry Maleb—would meet with Lord Ravenholdt for a game of cards in which both would attempt to cheat the other out of their money, and both would usually leave no richer than they had come. They received trade only from the passing goblin ships, bound towards or coming from the Undercity. In Anduin's final years, Southshore degenerated ever further into its more destitute practices, until an order came, not six months ago, for the reformation and repopulation of the army garrison, and the town once more had a use. 

Since the formation of the New Alliance, it had regained some semblance of its former nicety. The thieves became scarce when fresh, uncorrupted soldiers arrived, and the corrupted soldiers were mostly discharged; the whores were regulated and confined to a specific time slot; and the assassin's guild was no longer so obviously welcome, though Magistrate Maleb still met with Lord Ravenholdt until the assassin's demise a month earlier. Of course, not everything was corrected, either, as the new soldiers began to fall into the ease their predecessors had done in dealing with the town's problems, namely, doing little at all and spending their wages on the finest whores and gambling houses.

It had become more a hub town where the different races of the area—mainly the Forsaken and the humans, as well as a few dwarves from the mines to the south—could gather and trade and exchange what little information they could give, much less would. Far away from Stormwind, Southshore was nowhere near as tolerant, despite Benedictus' strict orders and his constant surveillance of the area. The humans of Southshore considered the dwarves as allies, but predictably treated the Forsaken who might appear as little more than pests that should be driven off as soon as possible. Of course, they didn't drive them off with pitchforks and torches, as they might once have, but they did scorn them in the streets, raise the prices of their goods to nigh-unpayable levels, and treat them as unfairly as one possibly could without declaring outright war upon them. Hence, Forsaken rarely entered the town, usually confining themselves to their own Tarren Mill.

The impression Naruto got when he entered the city was that it might have been pleasant once, but neglect and time had decided to reduce most of it to a place that looked no better than Tarren Mill—the houses were shabby and in need of repair, the lawns and gardens were almost full of dead grass and decaying flowers, the crop fields were overgrown and very obviously neglected, and the people appeared as kind as the drifters that Stormwind nestled in its darkest parts, or the waifs that populated the towns surrounding Konoha.

"Didn't expect this," was the first thing that Kakashi said when they passed the guards into the town. The main street was hardly populated, and the entire town appeared lonely and forlorn.

They had shown the guards Kira's orders, which had been written and signed in paper. They directed them to the end of the street, to the largest building on the left, which was the infirmary. When they got there, Sakura gasped at the state of the building. It resembled little more than a large shack, and was obviously not used regularly, if at all.

"What the hell is this!" the girl snapped, hurrying up to the door and thrusting it open. The others followed quickly, hoping that Sakura wouldn't do anything rash.

Inside wasn't much better—it was dusty and unkempt, and there were only seven beds, one of which was occupied. It was at the far end of the room, near a large window.

Sakura didn't notice this, however—she was in the midst of arguing with a rail-thin man who appeared quite affronted at Sakura's sudden entrance and consequent lecture.

"Are you the presiding healer here?" the girl demanded.

"Yes," the man said. "I'm—"

"Look at this place!" she cried. "It's filthy, and completely not sterile! What kind of place is this?"

The man glared at her. "Who are you, girl, to tell me how to—"

Sakura cut him off. "I'm a healer, and I'd wager a far better one than you. This place is disgusting—how do you expect to heal anyone in this place?"

"I don't," he said, nastily. "There are such limited resources here that the best I can do is offer my patients a little potion or a minor healing _jutsu_ and send them on their way. Don't lecture me about—"

"You're affiliated with Stormwind, right? So why not just ask for more help—they have plenty to give!"

"I—"

"Hold on, Sakura," said Kakashi, touching her on the shoulder. She snapped her head back to look at him.

"What?" she said.

"Give the poor man a break," he said, smiling. "And as it stands, we aren't here to lecture him on his poor housekeeping abilities—we're here to have a look at his patient." He looked at the man. "You have a patient, at this moment, do you not? A Master Kang?"

Still red-faced from Sakura's rant, the man nodded and pointed to the end of the room. "There, but don't expect to hear much. It—he's out cold and won't wake up for quite a while, I imagine, given the wounds he had."

"What were they like?" Kakashi asked.

"Mostly blunt wounds—I'd say a mace of some sort due to the strength, but it was more than likely a fist, given some of the bruises. He also had some burns and some piercing wounds around his arms and chest, as if stuck with a hundred needles as thick as my little finger."

"Anything mysterious about them?"

"If you're talking about the mystery wounds we found on the others, then no. This one had none of that."

Kakashi nodded. "Thank you." He looked at Sakura, who was still shaking, but was gradually calming down with a few whispered words from Naruto. "Have a look at him, will you?"

Sakura nodded. She headed for the bed, Naruto and Sai in tow, while Kakashi and Yamato talked with the healer.

The bed was cleaner than the rest, though still covered in a thin layer of dust, which appalled Sakura nearly as much as the condition of its occupant. Master Kang was an orc, a very old one, who might have once given the impression of power—but his body was skeletally thin now, and his face shrunken so much that he seemed as small as a goblin. His green skin was covered in a dark flush, and his breathing was unsteady and harsh.

Sakura threw off the covers, and examined the rest of his body, which was covered by a thin white robe, slightly parted in the front. The orc's body was mostly recovered, with the burns and bruises the doctor had mentioned long gone; but it was clear that Kang was far from healed, and his situation wouldn't be getting better.

"What did he do…?" Sakura muttered to herself, checking the state of his chest and the head.

Naruto glanced at her. "The healer?"

Sakura nodded, but didn't answer. One of her hands, glowing with blue _chakra_, rested just above his stomach, while the other remained on his head. She nodded to herself, made a seal, and the _chakra_ changed from blue to green tinged with gold. She pressed her hands against the areas, taking a few deep breaths. Naruto and Sai watched quietly and calmly. Naruto had a few questions, but he wouldn't disturb Sakura's work, which was far more important.

He glanced at the doctor across the room. He didn't like the man. He gave Naruto the definite impression that he was not doing his job right, and the only reason he was doing so was because of Master Kang's green skin. He suddenly felt a rising disgust, and at the same time, a slow emptying of his good thoughts. He pushed the coming thoughts away, but he knew they would come back. It looked like he'd been a bit too naïve. He should've guessed there would be more places like this, with people like him.

Some time later, Yamato and Kakashi walked over. They didn't address Sakura at all, because she was still in the midst of her treatment. She had stopped healing his head and stomach, and had moved on to mixing up a small batch of medicine from the herbs that she had acquired from Stormwind, and from her own stores. Occasionally she would move back and place her hands back on the two areas, filling them with more healing _chakra_, before moving back to her chemistry.

The healer watched them the whole time, with scarcely hidden disgust.

Finally, Sakura backed away, leaning against the windowsill. "It's done."

"Is he okay?"

She nodded. "He should be. I still don't know when he'll wake up, however." She sighed.

"Right," said Naruto. He turned away, advancing towards the healer. The man held his ground until, in the dim light, he caught site of the look on Naruto's face.

"What the hell is your problem?" he snapped. He kept his voice dangerously quiet—he'd learned from Myrdraxxis that that was far more effective than shouting.

The healer stepped back. "I don't know—"

"Why didn't you give him proper treatment?"

"I—" the man faltered, and backed away again. "What does it matter?"

"What do you mean what does it matter?" Naruto growled. "Sure he's not human, but what the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"He's a—" the man began.

"It doesn't matter _what_ he is!" Naruto shouted.

"Calm down," said Kakashi. The man had come from behind, and was now resting his hand on Naruto's shaking shoulder. He glanced at the healer, his gaze as warm as if he were facing his mortal enemy. "Don't expect that this won't go unpunished. The racism charge isn't much, but preventing valuable information from being obtained due to your personal feelings is another story, I imagine."

The healer didn't answer, and nodded a few times.

Naruto looked at Kakashi for a moment, then thrust another glare at the man, before returning to the bed.

"You okay, Sakura-chan?" he asked. The girl was still leaning, very quiet, against the window.

Sakura nodded once. "Fine." She gave him a weak smile. "I guess you have to deal with this a lot, huh?"

Naruto gave a helpless shrug. "I kind of wish I did. Then I'd know how to deal with it better."

* * *

They had no idea where they were going, truly—but all agreed that merely staying in one place was pointless. They set off down the tunnel, Neji in front with his _Byakugan _active and searching. Because he could see through solid objects and in almost every direction, he was able to accurately judge the depth and incline of their travel, which kept them from going deeper into the Core. They passed through tunnels that led up, finding them nothing but dead ends, and had to backtrack in these situations, and find another way. 

But it became increasingly clear that no matter how far they traveled up, they would never totally reach the top. Neji claimed that the final tier of the Blackrock Depths was only just visible from their current position, and he could barely see through it's entire vastness, which covered the majority of the Burning Steppes. More than that, some areas of the core he couldn't see past—likely protected by some natural rock that prevented Neji from seeing through it. He had never heard of such a rock or substance in his life, but he didn't deny it was possible; as it was highly unlikely that anyone was doing it purposely, because that would require an deep understanding of the _kekkai genkai_ itself, something only members of the Hyuuga clan possessed.

The smell changed over time, becoming less like sulphur and more like burning pitch. They decided that going down might be a better idea, since if there was an exit it might be closer to the center, where everything seemed to be situated.

They did not encounter anything dangerous, as they walked. The giant halls were deserted, though they did not appear to have always been. Shikamaru noticed the indentations in the rock, as if something very large and very hot had walked across it. The apparent footprints—nothing more than huge, misshapen circles—were large enough for their entire group to stand in them at arms length apart. Shikamaru did not want to see what had made them. But he did find it odd that they had seen nothing since the entrance—where could this army of Ragnaros be?

Shikamaru walked between Gai and Lee at the back, and a limping Chouji, supported by Ino in the front. Asuma and Undrig stood on either side of Ino and Chouji, and past them was Tenten and then Neji in front. Thoraan walked beside Shikamaru in quick, little steps, but appeared annoyed by the arrangement. The boy's face was completely blank as he walked, but his posture changed occasionally from proud stride to heavy trudge, so he could tell the boy thought it was useless to keep going. He might have believed it was simply the personality of a child to be bothered by forced physical activity, but given the situation, and the child, he knew better.

It was sad to see a child give up hope like a jaded adult.

The deeper they went, the hotter it became, and less Shikamaru was able to breath clearly. He coughed often, as did all the rest, as the smog from the deepest parts of the earth became steadily thicker and the smell of pitch became so intoxicating that they could not walk a few steps without someone needing to stop.

It became clear, soon, why none of the Dark Iron dwarves existed this deep—it would be impossible for them to survive for long. There was no way this place could harbor any sort of nourishing substance fit for humanoids to eat, let alone allow them to sufficiently breathe. But they pressed on, because they had nowhere else to go, and no other choice.

"What's the point of doing this?" Thoraan snapped at Shikamaru, at some point during the endless trudge. Recently, sounds from below had begun to catch their attention, so Shikamaru was only half-listening to what the boy had said.

"What?"

"Why are we still going? What's the point?"

Shikamaru glanced at him. "To die faster, I imagine."

The boy stared at him for a moment.

"I'm kidding," said Shikamaru, smiling a little. "We're doing it because we have no other choice."

"Of course you do," the child said.

"What's that?"

"Just give up."

Shikamaru shrugged. "That's not a choice any of us would acknowledge, however—so really, it isn't a choice at all."

"Why not?" the child demanded.

"Because we want to _live," _said Shikamaru, brushing more sweat from his eyes and coughing into his arm. "So thus, we have no other choice. If we die, we die, but until that happens, we're going to do the best we can to live."

Thoraan stared at Shikamaru a moment, before looking away and snarling something under his breath. Shikamaru looked at the child again, marveling at how absolutely unlike a child he was. What the hell had happened to this kid? He couldn't believe that it was the boy's intelligence that was providing the sense of pessimism—it had to be something else, and he believed he knew what.

"Thoraan, what did your paren—"

There was a sudden crash from in front of them, a long, echoing boom that was suddenly everywhere around them. It did not stop with one, however, and more followed. The tunnel they were in began to shake and it was so loud that Shikamaru couldn't even hear the shouts of his friends, standing no more than a few feet from him.

Ahead of them was movement. Not coming towards them, but crossing their path, just out of their field of vision, half-obscured by the darkness and the smoky veil.

They were as tall as the tunnel was, and there were dozens of them. They were giants, little more than clumps of rock stuck together into a vaguely humanoid shape, oozing and dripping fountains of molten rock, which flowed through the thin crevasses that made their joints and faces. They took great strides, each simultaneously, so that they never got closer to the giant in front of them, marching in step to an unheard rhythm. Their footsteps shook the cavern and they called out in booming voices that were almost indistinguishable from the shifting of rocks, amplified a hundred times over, perhaps tinged with the roaring of flames.

"Golems," Shikamaru said aloud to himself, as he and the rest rushed to the cave wall, hugging it and obscuring themselves behind one of the stalagmites, which was puny in comparison to the golems.

Their march continued, undisturbed, and none of them looked in the group's direction.

Shikamaru shimmied over to Undrig, who was breathing fast against the wall, staring at the giants with both wonder and horror.

"Where are they going?"

"Dunno," the dwarf said, after a second, and then again because Shikamaru wasn't able to hear him the first time. "We'd best find out!"

* * *

"We have a new mission," Sasuke suddenly said, as he gazed upon the glowing coal-like horizon of Stratholme. 

Karin glanced up at his words, and there appeared a hopeful look in her eye, which quickly vanished as she saw his stone-cold face, pale as frost. She nodded and stood, dusting off her black cloak as a mere force of habit, since the charred wood she had been sitting on would not show up on the incredibly black material. She adjusted her glasses, and nodded.

"What are we to do?" she asked, as business-like as she could manage in the face of the young man who made her heart beat as fast as a rabbit's being chased by a hawk. It hadn't always been like that, though; at least the prey and predator part. He had still made her heart beat just as quick.

"I don't know yet," he said, calmly. "We're to report to the Baron immediately."

"Finally!" Suigetsu roared, jumping to his feet and swinging the monstrous blade he held up and over onto his shoulder. "This place sucks! I need some action, now!"

The giant figure next to him, Jugo, who was watching the endless river of Scourge below with an unreadable look, looked at Sasuke.

"Is it like the last one, do you know?"

"I don't know," said Sasuke. "Perhaps."

"I don't know if I want to do that again."

"Like you'll get a choice," said Suigetsu, sneering. "Besides, you enjoyed it the last time, didn't you?"

Jugo didn't answer.

"Let's go," said Sasuke, without emotion. He turned away and leapt from the building onto the ground. The Scourge parted for him, and the rest of them as they leapt into the circle he had created. They did not attack as they sped down the street, towards the looming building formerly known as the Scarlet Bastion.

The smell of rot greeted them, and so did those that carried it. Twelve Scarlet Crusaders, or rather ghouls who had once been them, pulled open the door and parted to let them enter, and then led them in a lumbering fashion through the halls, saying nothing except making grunting sounds and licking their chops whenever they saw Karin. At times the girl would glare defiantly at them, with a sort of sneer on her face that petulant children gave to other petulant children, but sometimes she would jerk back and stay close to Jugo.

They reached the great chamber before the golden doors, and where once had been beautiful, stainless white walls was now a blood-bathed slaughterhouse. It coated the walls and settled in pools amidst tangles of human limbs in every state of decay. Karin gagged and covered her mouth and nose. Jugo did the same, and he and Karin fell slightly behind the other two. Suigetsu merely looked irritated. Sasuke showed nothing at all.

The throne room was not so different from when the demon Balnazzar had used it. But the holes remained and so had the battle scars. The throne itself was gone, replaced by a chair made of black iron—very simply in nature—which the Baron now sat on, watching them. His Deathcharger stood beside him, pawing the ground and giving a few ghostly neighs as they entered and stood before him.

"You have a mission for us?" Sasuke said, as softly as the dying.

Baron Rivendare nodded once.

"_**There is a place to the south that His Majesty wishes for fear to envelope—a place to show the world that our time is coming very soon. You and your companions will bring the Plague to it, and make it a bastion of the Scourge**_."

Karin lowered her eyes briefly, but glanced first at Jugo, but the man showed nothing on his face.

"Fine," said Sasuke, without hesitation. "But they," he gestured behind him at the others, "are still relatively human. They have only been treated once with synthesized plague, and might still be susceptible to the airborne form."

The Baron looked at them. Karin shrank back, but a second later glared as if she might attack a second later. Suigetsu grinned like a shark. Jugo did nothing.

"_**Then they will have another treatment."**_

"What if we don't want one?" said Jugo, calmly. "I do not like being a guinea pig. We don't even know what its effects might be, in the long run—however detrimental" He glanced at Sasuke uneasily, however.

"Then you will become a zombie, no better than the rest out there," said Sasuke. "Take the treatment. It is far better than the alternative."

"I like my humanity," said Jugo, though the force was gone from his voice, as he looked into Sasuke's frighteningly cold eyes.

Suigetsu laughed. "Like you ever had that, monster boy."

Jugo looked away, but his eyes went very narrow at Suigetsu's words.

"I don't mind," said Suigetsu. "I can already feel some changes. Heh, I can't wait for what the next one might bring me!"

Karin merely nodded, though she didn't like the idea. Her fit of rebellion had already passed, and listening to Sasuke seemed like the best idea at this point. But she was with Jugo. Even though she had done some horrible things in the past, she enjoyed her humanity.

She glanced at Sasuke. She had enjoyed his, too.

"What is the name of this place?" Sasuke finally said.

"_**Southshore,**_" said the Baron.

* * *

Tsuwabuki's head shot up from the floor, and she glanced around. Kira noticed the action immediately, and leaned down in her chair to meet the fox in the eyes. 

"Is it Naruto?" she asked.

The fox nodded once.

Kira made a seal, and then placed her first two fingers against the fox's brow, just above her eyes. There was a spark of blue light, and then a silky soft voice filled Kira's head—Tsuwabuki's. She never got tired of hearing the fox's voice, which was so much different from a human's, and so much more beautiful.

Tsuwabuki told her what Naruto had said, and not a second after she had finished, Kira whipped around, breaking the connection, and staring at Benedictus. The man was looking up from the ancient tome he was now reading, his face deadly serious, his eyes fixed solely on Kira's.

"What is it?"

Instead of answering, Kira grabbed one of the spare pieces of paper and a pen that they had been using for notes, and quickly drew a simple symbol, and then pushed it towards Benedictus.

"They found a symbol exactly like that," she said. "In blood, still filled with life energy and a very dark _chakra_."

Benedictus stared at the symbol for a long time.

"Ah-ha," he said, with nothing but cold dread. "I've found it."

* * *

"We there yet?" 

"Shut up, Hidan."

"Hey! It's a fair question! We've been walkin' for like, days! How far do we have to keep going? My fucking legs are killing me!"

The giant man stared down at the silver-haired man, and narrowed his strange eyes, like a photographic negative.

"Why the hell did we have to go all the way back to that dumb place anyways? Just because you needed to stash some of that crappy loot you got off that heathen dwarf?" The silver-haired man, Hidan, slapped an intervening branch out of his way and growled in the back of his throat. He sped up, while his partner remained slightly behind with his lengthy but leisurely stride.

"Shut up," the giant said again. "I did not want to carry such a potentially valuable item around with me."

"It was a fucking ring, Kakuzu!"

The giant, Kakuzu, narrowed his eyes again, but he didn't respond. There was no point in trying to convince someone who fought only based on faith—someone who didn't appreciate the value and power of money. It didn't matter how small a sum it was—it was money, and therefore it should not be wasted, nor should it be put in potential danger, especially on a dangerous mission like this one.

"This forest sucks," Hidan said aloud. "It's no fun."

"You're easily the most annoying person I've ever met."

"Shut up, Kakuzu!" Hidan glared into the brush for some time. Then he said, "We have our tracks covered here as well?"

"Of course."

"I can't wait. There's a church there, you know? A Church of the Holy Light. The biggest in the world. I can't wait to desecrate it. I can't wait to spill all of those bastard hypocrites' blood all over the place. It'll be divine!" He laughed to himself, rubbing the small pendant hanging from his neck. "I'll bring true Judgment to them. The Judgment of the true faith! I'll show those pretenders how wrong they really are!"

"I hate you."

"So?"

"Don't expect to be put back together if you're hit."

"I don't need it!"

"Fine."

"Fine!"

They walked further on.

"We're almost there," Kakuzu finally said, as he spotted the white steepled towers in the distance, just above the tree line below the hill they were cresting.

"Good." Hidan grinned, trying to spot the great castle of Stormwind beyond the walls—it was also just visible, far in the distance, standing higher than all the rest of the buildings. He grinned at the sight of it, and licked his lips eagerly.

"Don't get killed, Hidan." His partner said.

"Like I fucking could!"

* * *

Done, another fairly long one as well. Sorry for it being so late, but as I said—classes. This year has been a lot more intense than the last, but I'll try to keep updates as regular as I can. This might mean shorter chapters. 

And just to let you know: I won't quit this fic. I'm staying with it until the end. Just be patient with my updates, as they might get slower.

That being said, how was the chapter? Leave a review, let me know.

See you next week or so!

General Grievous

Next time: _Molten Core Center, Blackrock Spire, Stormwind, Southshore, Northrend_


	25. Heaven vs Earth

_Disclaimer_:_ There's no place for two in this world. Only one. Only one can survive. Survive what? I don't know. I also don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto_!

* * *

"My lord." 

"_**What Is It?"**_

"They are all ready—your generals have been massed, the Flight has been roused, and they are all awaiting your command. We can attack at any time, and surely destroy those who face us b-below."

A pair of eyes like heated iron enveloped the man in red, noticing how he shook slightly, trembling like a child.

"_**You Are Afraid?"**_

"No my lord, not of battle."

"_**Of Me?"**_

"Yes, my lord."

There was a great, rumbling laugh. "_**So Honest, My Enemy. That Is Why I Keep You Closest."**_

"Thank you, my lord."

"_**Do You Want To Kill Me?"**_

"Y-Yes, m-my lord."

"_**But It Hurts?"**_

"So much, my lord."

A Cheshire grin.

"_**Good.**_"

Victor Nefarius turned, his cloak billowing like smoke behind him, and walked to the end of the balcony he stood upon, which may have once been a throne room, and now was only a floor jutting out from beneath a cave in the mountain. It was the very highest point, fitting for the one who ruled such a heaven as him. Behind him, he could hear it all—the sound of his children bellowing and roaring for blood, the light beating of their wings, the gnashing of their teeth, their feet and claws upon the cold floor ringing like steel on stone—and he smiled ever wider. He turned his eyes downwards then, upon the earth and beyond, where nothing escaped him, not a single futile movement by the Elemental's army he did not see, did not hear; it was like watching an ant at toil, where it took but a single gesture to destroy everything it had ever known, to undo it's entire meaning in life.

"_**Are You Ready?**_" he said aloud. "_**Fool?"**_

He stood, and waited, for the answer to come.

* * *

The trail of golems did not seem to end. They continued on, lumbering in a great herd down the giant tunnel. Shikamaru and the others had moved farther from the marching behemoths, down a passage going in a similar direction, which according to Neji would eventually cross the giants' path. He couldn't see their destination, however—it was somewhere within the blocked off area, where his _Byakugan_ couldn't reach. 

He kept an eye on them every waking second as they descended into the core, and at the same time concentrated around him, too, on everything else. He sought smaller passageways leading up, or holes of some sort, anything that could help them get up and out of this place. But he saw nothing of the sort, save for small cracks that only went up a couple hundred feet or so.

They saw nothing else, however, and soon it became clear that wherever the giants were going, everything else was already there.

"Could there be a seal there?" Tenten whispered to the vexed boy, as the group moved around another corner, heading slightly towards the trail of giants—which was gradually growing smaller and smaller as they disappeared into the black void.

Neji's eyes moved to look at her, as in the past she had often complained that it was rather rude of him not to focus the majority of his three hundred and sixty degree vision on her when they talked.

"Maybe," he said. "But it must be a very powerful one to block my vision—and I can't even see how it works, which is unusual."

In the back, Shikamaru kept one eye trained on what was happening before him, and one eye on the small dwarf at his side. Thauraan had not spoken since the discovery of the giants, and Shikamaru had been trying his best to work out what they were going to do next, as well as trying to work out what was wrong with this child. He kept wondering how Naruto did it—how the boy knew people, inside and out, just by looking at them. Was he just a faster thinker than Shikamaru, or were their problems just more readily apparent to him? Did Naruto even think about what he said, or did he just act on what he felt? Shikamaru couldn't see how it could be the latter, but the former didn't suit Naruto at all.

He glanced at the boy. His guts told him very different from what his mind said.

They finally reached the edge of the darkness that Neji couldn't see through—to everyone else it appeared to be nothing more than another wall. Tunnels went in either direction from where they reached it, and Neji said they curved around slightly, at the very edge of his vision—it was a circle, he guessed.

"Where are the giants entering, Neji?" Gai asked, staring down the immense gaping mouth of the tunnel, where the distant rumbling footsteps could be heard.

"About half a mile from here," said Neji.

"How?"

"A large hole. I can't see through it, however."

Gai nodded. "Lee, come with me. We'll go on a scouting mission. We'll find out what's going on. Everyone else, stay here and out of sight."

Everyone nodded. When Gai passed Shikamaru he turned and looked into the boy's eyes, and then flicked them down to Thauraan; Shikamaru briefly nodded back, trying to restrain any visible signs of frustration. He was not looking forward to the talk, no matter how necessary it was.

But Gai smiled at his nod, and then dashed with Lee down the hallway, disappearing quickly into the noxious blackness.

Everyone returned to the smaller passage, taking seats near the wall, barely secluded by a pair of large stalagmites. Thauraan sat away from everyone else, withdrawing into his small ball, wracked by a few coughs as he did. Everyone else was coughing too, and everyone was finding it hard to breath.

"I don't think I'll be able to move after this," Ino wheezed, glancing sideways at Chouji. She was sweating and her eyes were half-closed in fatigue. Her breath was ragged. Chouji was no better. He merely nodded, slinking back and trying to slow his breathing, while he clutched his wounded stomach.

"You two okay?" Shikamaru asked briefly.

"Stupid question," said Ino.

Shikamaru barely smiled. "True enough." He turned and looked at Thauraan. The dwarf did not move, or meet his eyes, so he crept closer.

"I want to ask you something," Shikamaru said, in a bare whisper. He drew nobody's attention—whether because they recognized his discreetness or were simply too tired, he didn't know.

The boy glanced up, meeting his eyes squarely. "What?"

"Why don't you care?"

"About what?" said Thauraan.

"Your parents, of course."

Thauraan didn't answer.

"They're dead." Shikamaru said.

"I know!" the dwarfling snapped back.

"Don't you care?"

"Why should I?"

"They're your parents?"

"How so? Do you even know what kind of parents they were?"

"Not really," said Shikamaru. He leaned back against the stalagmite, which seemed oddly cool now, maybe because he had already gotten so used to the heat. "So tell me."

"Why should I?"

"What else are you going to do?"

Thauraan opened his mouth as if to speak, but did not, and closed it a moment later. He shrugged. Shikamaru nodded, and waited for the dwarfling to speak.

"My mother was his tool," he finally said. "My father's, that is. She wasn't really in control of herself. She did everything he wanted her to do, and didn't question it. He enjoyed it, though I don't know why, probably because it was the only thing he had control of. The Firelord did everything, and he lived in fear always."

Shikamaru watched the boy. There was still nothing in his face. His words were adult-like and his sentences perfectly formed; there was no child in that little body.

"Did you hate him?"

Thauraan didn't answer. Shikamaru nodded briefly, and then asked, "Did you hate her?"

Again Thauraan didn't answer, but this time Shikamaru didn't say anything after, letting the silence be filled with the distant rumbling and groaning of the earth around them, and the hissing of fire and hot gas from cracks in the walls, and the ever-present rainfall of molten rock dripping from the ceiling. Shikamaru stared in front of him, his mind in no particular place, as he waited for the boy to answer. It was a few moments before he did, speaking in a soft, slightly cracked voice, like a few pebbles tumbling from a rocky cliff.

"Y-yes."

Shikamaru turned to him. He had noticed the stutter, though it was slight. Thauraan then continued.

"I hated her because she wasn't my mother at all. I didn't know if she took care of me, or did anything without my father's command. She couldn't. What kind of mother is that? She was the only one I knew, but I read a lot, and I know mothers aren't supposed to be like her, that people aren't supposed to be like her, or him, or anyone down here. People aren't supposed to follow what others tell them. They're supposed to think for themselves. Right?"

Shikamaru was very quiet, but he gave a little nod to show that he was still listening, and urging the boy to go one. But Thauraan didn't, and once again they lapsed into silence, but this time Thauraan was staring at Shikamaru the whole time. Shikamaru knew he wanted an answer, one that he most likely already knew, but it always helped to have someone confirm it. But he couldn't confirm it, because it wouldn't be right to say something that didn't apply to him.

Shikamaru supposed he had free will, more so than Moira, more so than most of the Dark Iron dwarves, but he wasn't sure. It didn't make sense, because what exactly was he, then? He was a shinobi.

He was a tool.

So how could he possibly have the freedom that Thauraan wanted?

* * *

Gai and Lee were both hidden behind a tall rock at the edge of the tunnel, a rock that was large enough to have still hidden them if two shadow clones of Gai had stood on Lee's shoulders on the tips of their toes, but was still puny in comparison to the rock-covered, lava-oozing giants that were not ten yards before them. They were funneling into a cavern that Neji would not be able to see, which was large enough to accommodate only two of them at a time, but which was still big enough to fit roughly three dozen men standing side by side, each at arm's length apart from each other. The giants were so broad that neither of them could see much of the chamber beyond. But the way the giants spread out near the end, moving in opposite directions; and the sounds coming from it—all the natural sounds of the deep earth, roaring as one, echoing so loudly that Gai could not even hear the giants' steps, suggested to him that it was huge chamber, and probably the last one. 

For a moment, Gai could not help but admire the truly futile aspects of their situation. They were hot, on the last few drops of water, and the smoke and gas were blackening their lungs and burning their eyes, and would soon make them unfit to fight, and then even move. Their lives hinged on what lay behind the impenetrable black wall, and from what he could see it was no exit. The giants were not massing to leave this place, he decided.

They were massing to battle.

He could think of no other reason—it was time for the battle to begin, the battle against what all of the Dark Iron dwarves seemed to fear—the "black things". It was likely going to be a battle that would tear the world around them apart—wars always did that, but this was different. It was a battle led by a monster older than time, and likely an opponent—the leader of these "black things"—that was no different. It would not be a battle, then, that any human could survive, and one that they had found themselves caught up in at the worst possible time.

Gai loved life.

For all its inequality, he loved life so much that he couldn't bear to think of what came next. It was why he liked to think himself still as young as he used to be, because he knew that old age brought one closer to death, and he didn't like to think of that (though, he sometimes had to admit that he was no longer in his prime). Death was a stranger to him, and always would be, because Maito Gai loved life to the point where he could not even look past it to what lay beyond.

Sometimes, though, Gai saw beyond it regardless.

Sometimes, it was hard not to. He had been in many situations that had seemed like he would not survive. He'd been one of the few shinobi to fight the Kyuubi head-on and survive, which few could claim—not even the Yondaime Hokage had. Before that he'd survived the war against the Hidden Stone by the skin on his nose, even when all of his teammates and his mentor had met their ends honorably in service to their village. Life hadn't treated him fair. It rarely treated anyone fair, and though Gai knew he had to accept that, it was hard not to scowl at it sometimes; especially when some had not even begun to experience it.

That was why he did it.

That was why, even though he knew they all stared Death in its chilling, bony face, he would make sure they survived.

It was not his own instincts for self preservation, which had served him too well in the past, but his desire to make sure that not a single one of the next generation—his students and their friends—died in this place, facing an enemy that no human should be forced to face.

"Ah!" said Gai suddenly, "Something is happening."

Lee stuck his head out slightly farther from behind the stalagmite. "What is it?"

The tail of the giants' marching line had finally arrived—and the final one was the largest of them all. It stretched so huge and wide that its head scraped against the ceiling, and its arms brushed the sides of the tunnel with each step it took. The ground shook and both Gai and Lee needed to use _chakra_ to make sure they didn't fall over from the tremor each movement made. The entrance into the battlegrounds seemed to widen at its approach, so that even though the other giants had just barely made it through, this final one did as well.

In its wake trailed a group of creatures neither golem nor dwarf, nor anything they had seen before. They were small, only as tall as a man, and resembled them to the waist, where instead of feet there was only as single, snake-like tail. They slithered on sinuous yellow-orange scales and kept so close to each other that the long, rod-like spikes protruding from their shoulders, backs and heads sometimes clacked together, drawing hisses from creatures involved. The biggest of them was in the middle, and though it appeared no different from the rest save for its size, Gai could see it commanded the most authority, from the wide berth the others gave it.

Gai frowned as the creatures slowed to a stop before the cavern. The smaller creatures moved aside, allowing the bigger one to move to the mouth of the entrance and raise one of its large, scaly claws—where it clutched something—and begin to speak in a guttural, deep growl, far from the hiss Gai had been expecting.

The cavern began to collapse.

It did not fall apart, but seemed to simply fold in on itself, growing rapidly smaller in a medley of rocky crashes. The creatures were still, even as Gai leapt to his feet, and hurtled himself towards them with a speed the ancient depths had never seen.

* * *

As soon as the rumbling started, Shikamaru and the others became alert. It lasted only a minute or so, but the echoing continued for a while after, though blended throughout were sounds that did not match the falling rocks or the hissing of released gas, but that were too indistinct to identify. 

"We should probably check on Gai," said Asuma. "It sounds like it came from his direction."

Neji stood. His eyes grew wide and white with the _Byakugan_, and then wider, as his vision fell on the scene before him.

"Move!" he shouted.

They ran, hurtling down the passage without regards to caution. Thauraan did not run, but waddled, and Shikamaru stood by him, even though he wanted furiously to join the others. He didn't know what was happening, but Neji wouldn't say something so urgent without reason. He shouldn't have to be here, taking care of this bratty little kid, while his comrades were in danger!

"Let's go!" he snapped to Thauraan.

The dwarfling stopped a moment to glare at him. He seemed to be about to speak, but Shikamaru decided not to let him, and instead picked the child up and picked up his pace; he flew down the tunnel as fast as he could, carrying the dwarfling over his shoulder as if he were a sack of rocks. He caught sight of his companions ahead of him, and triumphant, put on a burst of speed even as he realized that they had stopped. He slowed, and stopped, panting, with all the rest, staring at the scene before them.

Gai and Lee stood in the midst of a mound of creatures nobody had seen before. Both were hardly worse for wear than when they had left—save for a few more burns— and both had bright, shining grins on their rounded faces, which against all odds continued to sparkle with an unknown sheen (at least Gai's did—Lee's still had a ways to go in comparison, it seemed).

"Yosh!" roared Gai. "THE FLAMES OF YOUTH STILL BURN WITHIN ME! CAN YOU NOT SEE IT, LEE?"

"I CAN, GAI-SENSEI, I CAN!" Lee roared, pumping a fist into the air.

"What happened?" Asuma said, stepping forwards. "Were you attacked?"

Gai leveled a cocky stare at him, and flashed an even wider glittering smile. "No! 'Twas us who did the attacking, was it not, Lee?"

Though now that the battle had ended, and the feeling of exhilaration had begun to fade, Lee seemed no less sure of his answer, and gave a confident, enthusiastic nod.

Shikamaru dropped Thauraan, and advanced. "Why?"

"No need to raise your voice, Shikamaru-kun," said Gai, with a smile. "It was not without reason."

"You had no idea of the consequences!" said Shikamaru. "Do you even know what these things are?"

Gai stuck out a thumb, up-turned, exchanging a quick glance with Lee. "Of course not!"

Undrig had knelt down by one of the creatures, and was staring at its grotesquely distorted features, mangled even more by a blow from either Gai or Lee. "I think," he said, "I seen one o' these in a book once. They're flamewakers. Nevah seen one tho' in real life, they usually stick ta' the Elemental Plane."

"You could have—" Shikamaru began, but Gai cut him off, not with words, but with a sudden gravity in his look.

"Shikamaru-kun," he said. "I acted as was necessary for the situation. There are times when we must think, but there are also times when thinking becomes pointless in comparison to action. Had I gotten in over my head, I would have retreated, but I had the element of surprise, and, of course, the power of youth!"

"Yes, but…" Shikamaru said.

"But nothing!" said Gai. "Unless I am mistaken, we have all had enough of this place, and to stay here any longer would bring nothing but death. In situations like these, Shikamaru-kun, it is sometimes better to let our natural instinct to survive take hold. There is nothing futile in our actions in a place like this when any moment death could fall upon us—and I don't intend to die down here, nor do I intend to let anyone else die down here. You are the future of our kind, Shikamaru-kun, and to let people like you perish would be pointless! All of you…" he gesture around him, to all his students and their friends, "are the future of Konoha, of the world, even, and I for one cannot let such important people die here. My prime, Asuma's prime, have past…"

"Oi, oi," said Asuma. "I'm still young."

"…and our time has long since passed that we could change the world with our actions and our beliefs. But yours is just arriving, and it has never been so important as now! To die here would be pointless, and detrimental to the future! You are already changing things with your beliefs, your actions—did you not decide to come here yourself, of your own free will, to help this boy?"

Shikamaru was quiet.

"You are changing the world," said Gai, grinning. "And the world always needs changing. In my time, such free will with shinobi was considered to be against the law—it is exactly what separated us from the missing-nin. They had it, we did not…they were villains, and we were tools to destroy them. Yet the times are changing, and free will, no matter what, is deserved by all people, and all people have it, regardless of whether they choose to use it or not. Some have it taken from them, and we shouldn't blame them, but those that take—they are worse than the worst trash rotting in a landfill." His eyes shifted, very briefly, to Thauraan.

Thauraan had gone very white.

"Shikamaru-kun, I will not let anyone here die like this. Not when all of you have what is most needed for the future, even if it means that I myself must sacrifice my life. The world, especially now, needs people like you, like all of you." He turned around, and looked at everyone, meeting all their eyes—even Undrig's—and smiling with a mixture of pride and triumph.

Shikamaru noticed Thauraan's face most of all among his comrades—whose faces were filled with both wonder and—he guessed his was too—relief; because that's what he felt most of all. But the dwarfling's face was closed again, but only as much as a window could veil light from a room. It made Shikamaru wonder if this was what Naruto always saw in people. Did he always see it so easily, or was it even easier than this? It was so clear now, that he didn't know how he could have ever missed it.

For all his annoying mannerisms, Shikamaru suddenly had a new respect for Gai. He didn't know if Gai had intentionally said what he'd said, especially when it echoed the very conversation that Shikamaru had had with Thauraan.

Gai, having finished his speech, was now inspecting the wall opposite them, keeping his face carefully hidden, not wanting his blush to be seen. Though everyone saw this, he seemed to have other intentions that just hiding his embarrassment.

"Gai-sensei," Shikamaru said. "What are you doing?"

"The larger one of those things," Gai said, waving at the heap of flamewakers, "had this, and used it, I think, to seal the entrance into the next passage. I am not sure how it works, however." He turned, and then strode over to Undrig. "Perhaps you can make something of it?"

"Give it here, then," said Undrig, taking the object from Gai's hand—it was a circular pendant, made entirely of a black stone, and depicting a complicated symbol on the front. The dwarf turned it over a few times in his hands, frowning at it. "Runes," he said. "Definitely runes, so I think I can figger out a way to release 'em, and break the seal. Course, when we do, we're gonna get noticed pretty quickly inside, if that's where everyone is going.

"It is," said Gai. "They are massing an army. I believe that the battle is about to begin."

Thauraan suddenly looked up, the placidity of his face shattered in an instant. "No!" he said. "Not now!"

"It'll be easier for us," said Shikamaru, "in the long run. If they start the battle, then it'll be easier for us to escape."

"It'll be too dangerous!" said Thauraan. "When the 'black things' come, we won't have anywhere to go! If we go in there we're going to die for sure!"

"As will we here," said Shikamaru. "We don't have a choice."

"But…!"

"Hey," said Shikamaru, bending down, staring straight into Thauraan's eyes. "Regardless of what you're parents did you, regardless of what has happened in this past, I cannot believe that you want to die here, and if you don't want to die, then there is only one thing you can do."

Thauraan stared blankly in his eyes.

Shikamaru took a deep breath.

"You can try your hardest to live, especially when you're needed so much."

Thauraan shrank away at the words, but it was less from fear, as his face showed confusion more than anything. He didn't understand, but Shikamaru knew he would eventually. He was a genius, or at least appeared to be.

Shikamaru's stare did not linger, and he cast it to the tunnel wall.

"When it opens," he said. "We're going to have almost no time to get in. We don't know what's in there, or what the chamber's layout is, or even if there is a way out in there, but we're going to have to try. I want everyone to stay together, to move as fast as we can, and to stick to the edge of the walls at all times. We have to be silent and fast, and nothing else, because that's all that we are at this point. This is not our battle, so I want no fighting to take place. Flee from every encounter, and find whatever means possible to hide. Use the stones if we get lost. Neji, I want you to keep an eye on everything. You're going to be our key for getting out."

"Of course," said Neji, with the barest of nods, and the slightest of smiles.

"Whatever these 'black things' are, whoever leads them, it doesn't matter. They may also be our key to getting out. If they can get in, they we can get out."

"Unless they can fly," said Chouji.

"If they can fly, all the better," said Shikamaru. "That's where you come in, Ino."

"I was wondering when you'd say that," said Ino. "Glad to be of service."

"How could they get in?" Lee asked, frowning.

"I don't know," said Shikamaru. "They might not—we might be meeting them. Either way, at some point, we're going to be outside, or they're going to enter from the outside, so there is sure way for us to get out.

"Everyone else, I want to form a group around Thauraan. Protect him with your lives, because he's the reason we're here, and there is no point in letting him die here. We're shinobi of Konoha, and we're good enough to get out of this place alive, in fact, we deserve it for getting this far."

"Ho!" said Gai, laughing. "You have quite a voice, Shikamaru-kun! You might be an even greater leader than Tsunade-sama!"

Shikamaru shrugged, flushing. "Just doing what needs to be done." For some reason, excitement began to course through his veins, and the fear began fade from his stomach, and even the air seemed clearer and easier to breathe in. He turned to everyone. "Is that alright?"

"Better than I could've done," said Asuma, grinning, and nodding along with everyone else. "Though you'll never beat me in shogi."

"Right then," said Shikamaru, ignoring the jab, and turning towards the wall. "Let's go."

"Hold on there," said Undrig.

"What?" said Shikamaru.

"I dinnae got this thing figgered out yet. Sorry ta' put a damper on yer speech an everythin'.

Shikamaru looked a little put out. "Oh. Right."

For some reason, Ino broke into a fit of giggles, followed by everyone else, and once more laughter rang throughout the fiery underworld, though it would be the last time in history.

* * *

"Done," said Undrig a little while later. "It ain't as 'ard as I thought it was. You just gotta say the names o' the runes and use some _chakra_. This thing'll do the rest. My guess is tha' those things were gonna seal everyone inside there, and tha's gonna be there battlefield. If tha's true, then it's gotta be big enough to fit all o' us in." 

"Pretty much," said Shikamaru, who was growing nervous again, and was trying to stop himself from shuffling from foot to foot. He kept glancing down both ends of the tunnel, and then towards the wall.

"Calm down," said Ino. "We're going to need you to be clear-headed."

"I know," said Shikamaru, "but for all that I say, It'd be stupid to assume that we're all going to get out of here alive for sure, especially when we don't even know what's going on in there."

"Try not to think about it," said Asuma.

"Right," said Shikamaru.

"And it isn't so far-fetched as you think," said Neji, in his customary softness. "Impossible things occur all the time."

"Such as?"

"Gai-sensei told me he had a _girlfriend_ once."

That was a sobering thought, and for a moment Shikamaru forgot his nervousness and wondered just how that had been possible.

Neji nodded in agreement. "I thought so too."

Shikamaru shook his head. "Fine then, is everyone ready? This is the only chance we're going to get. I want…" he swallowed. "I want everyone to get out of here. I want to live. We're all entitled to that, and this war that isn't even ours to fight isn't going to stop that."

Behind the wall, there was a violent trembling. Gas hissed more often from the crevasses, the trickles of magma became steady streams, and rocks began to fall around them as the tunnel shook like a wagon over rough terrain. It occurred to Shikamaru, however, that this had all been present before—the horrible smell, the noxious air, the tremors—but suddenly it was so unbearable that none of them could suffer it any longer. They moved into a formation, without words or fumbling, each taking a place where they knew they would be best. Neji and Gai stood in front, with Lee behind them, and Thauraan behind him. Shikamaru stood just behind the young dwarfling, flanked by Ino and Chouji, and Tenten and Asuma beside them, and Undrig in the rear.

"Fine then," said Shikamaru, looking around. "Stick together, and we'll get through this."

Everyone but Thauraan nodded. The dwarfling's emotionless face was slowly cracking again. Shikamaru laid a hand on his shoulder and bent down. Thauraan turned and looked at him. There were tears in his eyes.

"I don't want to die," he said, softly.

Shikamaru could not offer any words, because at the sight of the tears, they failed him. Instead, he offered the only thing he could manage at the time.

A smile.

Still gripping the dwarfling's shoulder, he stood up and stared straight forwards.

"Let's go."

Undrig raised the pendant, and shouted in his language of consonant sounds, bellowing throatily three times until a fiery symbol exploded into being on the wall. It lasted only for a moment, and then the wall began to open wide, and time seemed to speed up, and it seemed that all it took for the world to end was only a few seconds.

* * *

The black cloak billowed, and Nefarius thrust it aside as he raised his hands into the air, and crying in a voice that no longer seemed human, a voice that no other sound on earth could match, because it was something greater than that, higher and more mighty than any earthly being. He had heard the answer, heard his enemy's challenge, and now it was time. 

"_**Earth, Open Up Your Great Maw, And Let He Who Is Worthy Enter, To Extinguish Your Fire!"**_

The earth answered, and with a thundering that shook the world, it split. The Burning Steppes burst apart in a tremendous cloud of stone and ash, hurtling a devouring black plume into the air, which then sunk inwards into the ground, into the cavernous mouth that was opening, and revealing to Victor Nefarius his goal and his enemy. He lowered his hands, and roared again.

"_**My Children! It Is WAR!"**_

The spire above exploded. Clouds of black with a deep, colorful shimmer embedded within spread out into the air, and the roar of the distant earth was drowned out by the horrible wail of the heavens, which spread out to engulf the scorched sky. It was like judgment had come. The cloud made of shimmering black scales and gleaming metallic claws then went down, thousands of eyes of all different shades staring with hatred at their enemy beneath the earth.

Nefarius watched his children take flight, watched their wings beat and their scales shine and their teeth gnash in fury as they descended, further and further into the earth, and then he took a step off the ledge, and dropped from the heavens, an angel without wings.

His small, puny, fleshy form changed, becoming larger, stronger, _truer_—he shed the skin as naturally as a snake would, and soon Lord Victor Nefarius did not exist.

And Nefarian, son of Deathwing, Lord of Blackrock Spire and Enemy of the Earth, suddenly did.

* * *

The world did not so much end as it did not even begin. 

They caught merely a glance of the room they had entered—a vast, circular arena with a dome-shaped ceiling and a bowl-shaped floor, dipping all the way into a lake of fire in the middle at least a mile wide, all seen through the cracks of the giant golems that stood in their way, half turned as they heard the sound of their door opening—before everything seemed to disappear.

There was a roaring so loud that every bit of Shikamaru's confidence was blown away, and the carefully considered but desperately risky plan was shattered like a vase knocked by rowdy children. The ceiling descended, blown away into a shower of rocks and a veil of black dirt and ash that soon descended on the room like night. Their formation was broken, and soon the only person Shikamaru could see was Thauraan, whom he clutched tightly in his hands and was now running with. Ahead of him, he caught glimpses of Lee's green outfit, but soon even that vanished in the smoke and ash.

The battle had begun without any warning at all. He could not even hear it begin, through the roaring and crumbling of falling earth. Around him, all he could see giant feet of rock moving and stomping and kicking as he ducked and weaved between them, still clutching Thauraan. Above him, he could sense movement, and dark shapes would swoop in the dusty cloud, smashing into the towering golems, knocking them over or shattering their clumsily shaped heads, and causing them to crumble and fall into heaps of black rock, which gushed fiery blood. Fire bloomed above him, as well as flashes of light that resembled lightning. He heard bellows around him, from the golems, and hisses from their snake-like attendants, and roars above, from whatever they fought.

Thauraan was screaming, but hung limp in Shikamaru's hands, totally in his care. Shikamaru did not slack his grip on the young dwarf, holding him under his arm as he ran, desperately searching for his friends. He did not stop running however, not once, because if he did he knew he would die or be caught up in a battle that he didn't need to be in.

The ground shook and rocked and Shikamaru had to use _chakra_ to keep himself from falling every second. Far stronger impacts than falling rocks shook the ground, and Shikamaru could hear them in the distance, or see them just out of the corner of his eye in explosions of rock, though he never stopped to see what they were.

He didn't know where he was going, either, but he knew that he couldn't stop.

Somewhere else in the haze of battle, Ino and Chouji ran alongside each other. Ino was shouting desperately into her communication stone, but she didn't know if anyone could hear her through it. They didn't even know what direction they were moving in!

Though she had never been one to accept defeat or give in to fear, Ino was quickly considering simply stopping, and letting it all end. They hadn't prepared for this, they couldn't, it was all going to end, it was—

Something smashed into the ground before them, halting their progress.

"Get back!" Chouji bellowed, grabbing her by the cloak and pulling her back, because he knew she wouldn't hear. "Ino!"

Ino did not hear him, but stopped anyways. The thing that had landed before them was not something she could have conjured in her darkest nightmares, because things like this had never scared her until now. It was huge, black, and vaguely humanoid, but the most frightening thing about it was that she could _feel_ its power, like a wall in front of her, so even if Chouji hadn't grabbed her, she would have been able to go no further from the sheer horror of being near it. Even her scream was halted in her throat.

It had a reptilian head set on a humanoid torso, with thick, meaty arms and wings that stretched out in both directions as long as two men laid in a line. From its waist down were four legs as thick as logs with claws as large as _kunai, _and colored like bone nearly stripped of flesh, as well as a long tail studded with similar barbs that grew increasingly longer as they ran up its spine and to its head.

It rose, sinuous like a snake and dark as a shadow from the earth, pawing the ground and cocking its great head like a bird, taking in the scene before it.

Its eyes met Ino's first.

"**Humans?"** it rumbled. "**In this battle? What is this?"**

Ino twitched, stumbling back, terror in her eyes; Chouji remained steadfast, moving in front of Ino, with fire in his.

"**Waste of time!"** the dragon-beast roared. "**You're a waste of time! I did not come here to kill humans!"**

It advanced one step, fury in its eyes, and then stopped again. It licked its chops, greedily, and cocked its head again, as if listening to something other than the roar of battle. It then snapped its chaws, grinned, and spun around as a plume of fire burst into being at its left, growing huge and taking the vague shape of an upper torso. Its eyes were a bluish flame, and its grin bright red.

"**My…first…opponent…!"** it exploded.

The dragon beast now totally ignored Ino and Chouji. "**Firelord spawn! I am Razorgore the Untamed!"**

"**Then…die…black…spawn!"**

Ino was shaking, unable to stop, unable to move. White, blank fear had replaced everything she had ever known. She did not feel Chouji shaking her, telling her to go.

She just watched, as heaven and earth warred.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee shouted, not two feet from his mentor, whom he could hardly see in the blackness. "Where are we going?"

Gai didn't answer for a second, as he glared at the communication stone he held, damning it silently for not working properly. He growled. "Neji, do you see anyone?"

"No," shouted Neji. "I see everything else, however!" And he did. All around him, the most impossible of battles raged worse than a maelstrom. He could see creatures that only a week ago he had difficulty believing existed, let alone being in the quantities there were here. There were too many of them. He couldn't find anyone in the gloom, his mind too distracted by the vicious battle; Neji had seen people fight, but never like this. This was not a human war, but a war more primal, ancient, _violent_. It was like a natural disaster, a flood, a fire, or an earthquake of the greatest proportions. Had he not been in the dead center of it all, he probably would have thought it beautiful in a way, like staring down a gorge from the top of a high mountain—a sublime feeling. But at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to get away from it.

Neji rarely lost his nerve.

But he had never been so close to losing all sense of control, than right there, among thousands of dragons and golems, each fighting for the dominance of a place he never wanted to see again. His body shook a little, and it took him a few moments to rein the growing fear, which was quickly seeking to overcome him like a deadly pathogen.

He didn't know how long he'd be able to restrain it.

Until, something caught his eye.

"There!" he roared. "That way!"

They ran.

"Come on!" Undrig bellowed. Tenten and Asuma followed his voice, and the gleam of his hammer, as it swung in powerful, blurred arcs, clearing a way through the field of flamewakers and dragon-men—great, scaly beings that stood on two legs and looked like men, but covered in black scales that shimmered rainbow and possessing leathery wings that dragged behind them like cloaks, totally useless in practice. They hardly noticed the humans and dwarf among them, so focused were they on destroying their reptilian brethren. The flamewakers fought with metal rods and swords that hissed when they bit into flesh, cauterizing wounds as fast as they made them. The dragon-men fought only with tooth and nail, and a variety of deadly breaths that froze, burned, electrocuted, scalded and dissolved their opponents, sometimes all at once. Their movements were erratic and unnatural, and too fast for words. It was Asuma, Undrig, and Tenten's luck that they did not choose to rid themselves of the humans among them.

We have to find Neji, Tenten thought, desperately as she ran. We have to find him, because he's the only one who can get us out of here. He's the only one that can see!

She wanted to leave, as fast as she could. She couldn't stand being here one more minute. Her courage was failing her. This was not something that she had trained for. This was not something that she could do. She was a kunoichi, not a monster hunter, not somebody who was supposed to be in a situation like this!

She did not control herself. She did not even bother to hide her fear, her desperation. She was close to tears, but she didn't care. She was not meant to do this.

In front of her, something huge entered her field of vision, and stopped. Asuma grabbed her by the arm, stopping her from simply running faster, past it, away from it. He shouted something at her, but she couldn't hear it.

It was a giant, but it was not the like the humanoid ones she had seen previously, nor was it solely made of rock. Its skin was black and red and resembled the rocky floor of the Molten Core, and it stood on four legs like a dog and had two thick, barrel-shaped heads, each as big as a large wagon, each snapping and yowling as constant streams of liquid fire poured from them, flung in every direction in a fiery rainfall with its maddened writhing. Each step it took shook the earth like a meteor's impact, and its roars were deafening.

Asuma shouted for Tenten to get going. It hadn't noticed them yet, because all its attention was focused on something above it that they couldn't see, something that it was fighting, and appearing to lose against—all along its side were great, bleeding gashes. She saw streaks of red above her, and felt a presence so much huger than the rest that she found it difficult to move. Asuma yelled at her, grabbed her, and ran with her, but she didn't even notice. A feeling of primal terror had awakened in her, and she couldn't stop it.

The dog giant twisted, and stepped towards them. One of its feet landed right near Asuma, shattering the hot ground, showering them all in dust and rock. The heat was unbearable—the creature burned as hot as magma. It roared above them, a deafening blast that jarred Asuma into senselessness for a moment, unable to move or think. Undrig, however, seemed fine and held his hands out, producing a golden shield of _chakra_ that hovered around them.

"Oi!" he bellowed to Asuma. "Look lively, an' get that girl's wits in shape! We'll need 'em!" His desperate shout only half-reached Asuma, as he struggled to get his own mind in order.

"We have to find someone," Asuma wheezed. "Anyone. We can't get anywhere just stumbling around like this."

"Fuck no!" shouted Undrig. "So get the 'ell up at make sure that girl's got her mind in order so we can get goin'! That thing isn't gonna keep ignorin' us for long!"

There was nothing around them but dead bodies—flamewakers and dragon-men, scattered in heaps in varying states of togetherness, and piles of rocks lying in pools of cooling magma, once golems—and the fighters that still lived gave them a wide berth, creating a whole area around the battling dog-monster. It gave them time to think, true, but at the same time it made them painfully obvious, and that became clear when one of the heads caught the shimmer of Undrig's shield in its eye, and turned full to face them.

Its other head continued to flail and roar, spitting vast quantities of fire into the air at whatever assailed it from above, as this head inspected this new threat with interest. It opened its baleful maw in a wide grin, and vomited a stream of liquid fire large enough to cover them all in excess.

Undrig roared at them to move, but Tenten couldn't, and Asuma did not move fast enough.

But Shikamaru did.

Coiling shadows sprouted from the ground, wrapping around Asuma, Tenten and Undrig's legs, and yanked them out of the fiery phlegm's path, depositing them at Shikamaru's feet. The hound snarled at this disruption, and moved towards Shikamaru, but he had already started moving back. He had Thauraan in his hands and in the other he was shaking Tenten, telling her to get up, to get moving.

Tenten stared at him, blankly. The terror in his eyes, the desperation in his voice, made her _want_ to move so much that she began to tremble. But she couldn't move. She didn't know if it was fear, because if it was, she didn't know what kind. She'd been in life or death situations before, so why was she so scared now?

"Please," Shikamaru whispered, glancing up every few seconds at the demon hound. It was finally turning, somehow having shaken off its winged pursuer, and now had its full attention on the puny little humans before it. Tenten didn't know why it was bothering with them. They had to be nothing more than ants to it.

"Tenten," Shikamaru said, and it seemed softer, even though he was still shouting. "We have to go, now!"

Tenten glanced up at him. "B-but…"

"I know why you're afraid," said Shikamaru, "It's like a nightmare, isn't it? Like what you'd expect to find in hell. They're bigger and stronger than us, but that doesn't matter anymore, you know? This isn't our war—we just need to get out of here, and we're going to need your help to do that."

At that word 'help', Tenten's body seemed to react. She shook herself, and let Shikamaru help her to her feet. The fear was still there, but it was less now, and she knew that he was right.

The beast leapt forwards and lunged with both its heads, but Shikamaru and Tenten, having grabbed Thauraan, were already running, joining Asuma and Undrig as they bolted towards the crowd of flamewakers and dragon-men. The beast turned, each step it took disrupting their flight by nearly knocking over Tenten and making Shikamaru and Asuma stumble, while Undrig seemed unaffected. The hound roared, and opened both its mouths, sucking in a great breath of air that inflated its massive body even larger. The sound drew Shikamaru to look back at it, gasp, and urge everyone to run as fucking fast as they could because they weren't going to—

Then something hit the hound from above—a monstrous red shape, blurred as much as an arrow in flight, slammed into the creature's back, shattering the rocky scales it had on its back and creating a bone-shaking crack that must have echoed throughout the entire chamber. Its back broken, the beast gave a horrible gurgling wail, and collapsed, liquid fire spilling from its mouths—still agape—and setting the obsidian ground aflame around it.

Shikamaru could hardly believe it, and for a half a second his hope was renewed, until he saw the hound's destroyer and knew that they were in no better a position than before. It was a monstrous red dragon, though only half as big as the hound, somehow seemed a thousand times fiercer. Its scales were the color of coagulated blood and were dented and cracked in a few places, most notably a large part of its chest and neck. Its eyes were very black, tinted with orange, and were so prominent against the color of its body that Shikamaru found himself solely fixed on the dragon's eyes, and was unable to draw them away.

"**HUMANS…" **it said. Its voice was masculine, deep, and sounded so clear that it couldn't have traveled through the chaotic air to reach them. "**WHAT ARE HUMANS DOING HERE?"**

Shikamaru was already running, and Tenten and Asuma had joined him. Undrig had not. The dwarf was staring up at the red dragon with astonishment.

"Wha'? Wha's the Red Flight doin' 'ere, with all these black ones?"

The dragon heard him, somehow, through the roar of battle.

"**I AM NO LONGER OF THE RED FLIGHT, DWARF," **it said. "**I OBEY ONLY LORD NEFARIAN, LORD OF THE BLACK FLIGHT AND THE CHROMATIC FLIGHT. YOU'D BEST LEAVE NOW, DWARF—THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU HERE."**

"N-Nefarian? Bloody 'ell!" growled Undrig. "Tha's who they're fightin'? The bloody son o' Deathwing?" He turned, and bolted, to where Asuma, Shikamaru and Thauraan, and Tenten had gone.

Vaelastrasz watched him go. He growled at himself, and everything around him. They were not meant to be here, he thought, and yet something in him was telling him that he should help them, that he shouldn't fight for this stupid war or his greatest enemy any longer, and his Flight needed him.

But that was crushed by a louder voice, deeper, more familiar to him now. It told him to forget them, they would die anyways, and told him to continue his battle—destroy everything that Ragnaros had created, and make the entirety of Blackrock his lord's, and his lord's alone.

Vaelastrasz nodded to that voice, and took flight once more, as the other voice died away and was forgotten.

* * *

Chouji and Ino ran stumbled along as fast as they could, the heat, the noise, the shaking, the black shroud of dust, and their own dehydration, exhaustion, and wounds preventing them from sprinting as they would have liked. Behind them, the battle between the dragon, Razorgore, and the towering flame elemental raged on. All around them, golems had dispersed to let the two battle; each time they clashed, Ino's legs turned to jelly from the force of the _chakra_, and Chouji's entire body seized up in unnatural fear. Why was he so scared, why? He hated it, but at the same time, he could hardly control it. It was like dream-fear, unnatural and primal, and he couldn't get rid of it. 

Up ahead, they spotted more elementals—like bright beacons in the black smoke— in battle with more of the four-legged dragon-beasts, as well as smaller, two legged dragon-beasts that resembled men. Above them swooped black dragons proper, snarling as they crashed into the huge, rocky heads of the golems they warred against, or shrieking as they were plucked from the air and thrown to the ground, their wings crumpling against them, before they were silenced forever by a single stomp from a golem.

Ino knew that they wouldn't be able to get out by just running, but the sight of the horrible Razorgore had destroyed every shred of confidence she had in her _Shintenshin_ _no jutsu_. If she tried to take over any one of the dragons that surrounded her, surely her mind would be torn in two by the viciousness of its mind, which she could feel saturating the air wherever they went. But the killing intent of the dragons seemed more horrible than she could imagine. It was totally unnatural, like black fire.

"Ino!" Chouji wheezed, from her right, shouting against the din. "We need to get out of here! Remember what Shikamaru said!"

Ino swallowed. They did not stop running. "I-I c-can't," she said. "They're n-not…"

From above, a dragon swooped low, and landed with a crash in front of them. It was far bigger than the rest, and its scales did not have the rainbow shimmer that the others did, and were bright orange around its chest and near the top of its head, matching its molten eyes.

"**TO THE EASTERN SIDE!" **it bellowed. "**LORD NEFARIAN COMMANDS IT! GO!**"

The dragon-men moved, and the smaller dragons took flight, leaving the flamewakers in pursuit until the larger dragon coated them in magma, and then tore into their ranks with its claws and tail. The rest scattered, hissing, and totally ignored Ino and Chouji as they fled. The dragon let out a triumphant, echoing roar, and spread its wings in preparation to fly, but as it did, its head turned to the side, and spotted Ino's golden hair, which shone even through the dirt.

It turned fully, growling, and stretched its neck down to get a closer look at them, while Ino and Chouji quickly backed away.

"**HUMANS AMONG US? WHAT IS THIS?" **

Predictably, neither Ino nor Chouji responded, and instead they quickly turned and fled backwards.

The dragon licked its lips. "**BUT HOW FORTUNATE. A NICE SNACK."**

It lunched towards them, covering the distance they had managed in only a single bound. Ino screamed, a short bleat of emotion that was cut off almost immediately by the dragon's roar, and what happened in the following seconds.

A torso-sized fist barreled into the dragon, lifting it clear off its feet and onto its back, howling. Chouji, owner of the fist, wheezing like an old train engine, grabbed Ino with his other hand as his fist shrunk back to its normal size.

"Let's go, Ino!" he roared.

Speechless, Ino allowed herself to be dragged back into the gloom, as the dragon righted itself, roaring madly. It sucked in a mouthful of air and exhaled a sphere of magma as large as a beverage cart. Chouji felt the heat behind him, and turned, ready to accept death if it meant protecting his teammate.

But he didn't have to.

A white-hot blur rushed by Chouji, coming from the opposite direction of the fireball. It slammed into the ball, creating a firework of molten rock, and then even continued past that, streaking towards the dragon with speed like a wrathful hurricane assaulting the coastline.

'_Hachimon: Keimon'_

Maito Gai delivered only one strike with the power of the Sixth Gate: The View Gate, but that was all that was needed; the technique he had devised was perfect for dealing with opponents with large bodies, and it was made a thousand times more powerful when used in conjunction with the Eight Gates.

'_Yari Renge!'_

He thrust both hands forwards, palms out, driving them into the dragon's forehead; normally it would take extremely durable and well-made weapons in order to pierce a dragon's scales, usually weapons crafted of dark iron or adamantium, but in Gai's case, those weren't needed. The force of the _Yari Renge_ was strong enough to shatter layered steel shields and even crack diamonds. It focused all of the power of the user's body into a single, focused blow, and that was easily enough to annihilate even the scales of the true black dragon. The blow shattered even more than that, however, and continue on, striking the beast's skull and going through even that so that Gai's hands sunk all the way up to their elbows in the dragon's brain.

Dead without question, the dragon fell, as Gai ripped his hands out, gasping and landed a few feet away. His body shook, most of all his hands, which were now covered in blood and slimy grey matter.

Lee and Neji moved in beside Chouji and Ino. Ino, white-faced with both horror and joy, hugged both of them in turn.

"T-thank you!" she cried.

"No time," said Gai, though he offered her a quick smile. "We must go. We'll need to find another one of those, and Ino-chan, you must be prepared to do what is required of you."

Ino shook. "I can't, they're too strong. If I try, they might—"

"If you do not try, then we shall never escape," said Gai. "You must."

Ino, still shaking, managed a nod. Gai turned, gritting his teeth.

"I'll make do on my promise—I will not let any of you die here. We must find the others—Neji, have you…?"

"I'm looking," said Neji. He suddenly turned to the right.

"There?" said Gai.

"No…" said Neji. "It's something else. Something's happening over—"

He did not finish, because the world exploded.

It was as if the sun had fallen from the sky and landed in the middle of the Burning Steppes, illuminating everything inside it as a terribly black shadow—for one instant, they could see everything in the entire land: every dragon, golem, and snake-man in the midst of battle, illuminated in a silhouetted puppet-show frozen in time and space. In the very center of this light, for that moment, there was nothing but a black, empty space, larger than anything else, towering half the height of the chamber, formless as a cloud. Sound vanished, replaced by silence, and even the oppressive heat of the battlefield was somehow lost in those few seconds, in which the entire battlefield stared at the very center of the world.

In that silence, there came a voice, a plethora of roars like all the sounds of a volcanic eruption.

"_**COME…MY ENEMY…FACE ME…!"**_

And there was an answer, each word like a god's infallible decree:

"_**Good, I Was Beginning To Wonder If You Were Afraid! I Shall Snuff Your Candle's Flame, Forever, Firelord! Blackrock Shall Become MINE!"**_

At the last word, the world vanished in sound and heat.

The shockwave of Ragnaros' summoning blew across the entire battlefield, knocking everything that had feet from them, and causing dragons in flight to be thrown to the ground alongside their golem enemies. The blast sent Ino, Chouji, Gai, Neji and Lee all flying back, the noise, the heat the flames disorienting, the light blinding. Shikamaru dove in front of Thauraan, shielding him from the light and heat, while Tenten clung to Asuma for dear life and Undrig covered his face with his dirty gauntlets and clenched his eyes shut so tight that he should have seen only darkness, though even then it was as if he hadn't shut them at all. The sound deafened them, threw them off balance and out of sense, and it seemed as if the world had ended once more, though in fire and light now, instead of dirt and darkness.

In the middle of the battlefield, Ragnaros rose. Its summoning had cleared all of the dark dust from the area, but it hardly would have mattered, as its fire burned so brightly that it seemed to be a piece of the sun on earth. Ragnaros rose so huge, too, that it could have crossed the area in three or four strides if it had had legs; instead, below a humanoid torso composed all of the brightest white-yellow flame, there was a tornado of fire in perpetual motion, gathering the magma in the middle of the area up around it in a protective shield. Its arms were formed by thick columns of flame, surrounded by two bracers made of ancient, golden stone. Its head was a giant, deformed skull, crowned with a wreath of flames of all colors—black, blue, green, red, orange, yellow and white. With one of its hands, it drew something from the lake of fire—a monstrous hammer made of fire and stone, adorned with stalagmites and black jewels as big as horses, which it then pointed upwards.

It spoke again.

"_**I…SEE…YOU! TASTE…THE…FLAMES OF…SULFURON!"**_

Above him, circling the area was a great, black dragon, the biggest of them all. Where previously the dragon's scales had shimmered, or had been soot-black adorned with fiery orange, this dragon's scales were so black that they seemed to steal the light around them. By contrast, the scales on its stomach were such an orange that they seemed to be forged of Ragnaros' fire. The dragon's most prominent feature, however, were its eyes, which gleamed as bright as Ragnaros' body, though in the middle they were a cold black, like its own scales, and as cunning as Ragnaros' were hot.

Gleefully, at Ragnaros' words, it dove.

"_**Let Your Fires Be Dimmed, And Your Weapon Fall Heavy, Ragnaros, Lord Of Fire! You Shall Not Defeat Nefarian!"**_

Its roars seemed to make Ragnaros' fire less bright, and as Nefarian finished his words, the Elemental Lord dropped its weapon slightly, as if it were heavy. But that did not stop it from being swung in an upwards arc, seconds later, to meet the oncoming dragon.

Nefarian did not dodge. The impact was like a bomb exploding, and with it, the battle around them began anew.

Shikamaru barely managed to stand, glaring wildly around him as the battle raged. Everything was clear now, but his eyes hurt and his vision was blurry and white, and his ears rang; even though he felt he should be hearing a chaotic din, all he heard were distance sounds, as if the battle that was happening not feet from where he stood was miles away.

Thauraan was standing, next to him, and was staring white-faced at the risen Elemental. His body shook, because to him the creature was not simply some malefic monster, as it was for Shikamaru—for him, it was the closest thing he had to a God.

Shikamaru grabbed him by the arm. He shouted something that he even he couldn't hear, but Thauraan looked at him anyways, wide-eyed with fright and despair.

We're not going to get out of here, his eyes said.

Shikamaru hoped his response was clear.

Yes, we will.

* * *

Jesus that was a chapter in a half. I won't explain much here, mostly because I'm tired and I still have to finish the next chapter, which should be out in two days or so. This chapter is the result of a split between this and the next chapter, which I had at first intended to make into one chapter, but it got far too confusing for even me to follow, so I think I wisely chose to split them up. Hope you guys enjoy the chapter, and see you in a couple of days where I can accurately explain why the HELL I've been so late with this chapter. I shouldn't do this to you guys. 

In any case, see you soon!

General Grievous

* * *

**Bingo Book (Because It's Necessary): **

**Nefarian (Dragonkin)(Boss): **The Lord of Blackrock Spire and the only surviving son of Deathwing, the Earthwarder. Ambitious, cunning, and ruthless, he seeks to overturn Ragnaros and take all of Blackrock for himself. His plans after that are unknown, as are his powers, which are no doubt numerous and deadly.

**Ragnaros (Elemental)(Boss): **The Elemental Lord of Fire, who was summoned to the earthly plane millions of years after his imprisonment by the Titans in the Elemental Plane. His goals, as of yet, are to destroy Nefarian and take over Blackrock Spire, though due to his nature, it is likely he will continue to expand after that, until all of Azeroth is under his burning hand.

**Magmadar (Elemental/Beast)(Boss): **One of Ragnaros' favorite pets, and the patriarch of his elemental monstrosities known as the core hounds, which have haunted the Molten Core since it's beginning 300 years ago. It is huge and possesses nearly indestructible scales, unless you're a dragon.

**Vaelastrasz the Corrupt (Dragonkin)(Boss): **Once a member of the Red Flight, sworn to hunt the remnants of the Black Flight until the last, but now a member of that same Flight, as Nefarian's slave. Immensely powerful, though some semblance of his older self remains within him, as he fights Nefarian's control.

**Razorgore the Untamed (Dragonkin)(Boss): **A dragonspawn general of Nefarian, whose brutality in battle is unmatched by any of the others. He is master of the Hatchery, as well, and thus is responsible for educating the newborns in their life as Nefarian's brood. Is susceptible to mind control.

**Ebonroc (Dragonkin)(Boss): **A black drake, and one of Nefarian's generals. Commands a substantial portion of the chromatic drakes in Nefarian's army. He is greedy, and loves the taste of human flesh. He is slain by Gai, due to his incompetence and underestimation of humans.

**Flamewaker (Elemental)(Elite): **Servants of Ragnaros from the pits of the Elemental Plane, they are like naga in appearance, though they are much different. Eternal flames surround their bodies and their weapons conduct this heat, which can burn through flesh in but seconds. Their leader is Majordomo Executus, though he is a coward by nature, and leaves most of the governing to the five other flamewaker generals—Baron Geddon, Lucifron, Gehennas, Shazzrah, and Sulfuron Harbinger.

**Drakonid (Dragonkin)(Elite): **Created by Nefarian, are variants of the dragonspawn and incredibly quick and vicious. They possess chromatic capabilities, that is to say, they possess the ability to use all of the powers of each flight—black, red, green, blue and bronze.

**Dragonspawn (Dragonkin)(Elite): **Creatures suspected once to be human or otherwise, having been corrupted or created by dragons to serve their needs. They are foot soldiers in most cases, though they can become generals, such as Razorgore.

**Golem (Elemental)(Elite): **Giants made of rock, created by Ragnaros and his minions. Their method of animation is unknown. Are extremely dangerous, and very powerful.


	26. Meetings

_Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft ftw!_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Sakura glanced into the sky, which was a little lighter as she neared the beach. In the distance she could see a shroud of grey mist rising into it; it was not a wholly beautiful sight, but a welcome change to the inky blankness of the sky above Southshore. The edge of the town also proved, as she walked towards the small wharf that comprised it, to be the quietest and least run-down portion of the town. It was the best place for a walk, and indeed, the most peaceful place too. She didn't see anybody near the wharfs, which was probably why Naruto had chosen that spot to train. 

She could hear him, just out of sight, on the beach just outside of the town limits. It was not terribly obvious, especially since the whirling of the_Rasengan_ was a whistle not unlike that of the howling wind, just a little higher in pitch and far more constant. The crashes were a bit easier to hear, especially since the sea rarely made much sound.

She hopped off the wharf, landing on wet sand, and strolled along the beach, childishly attempting to avoid getting wet when she got to the rocky parts, when she could just as easily walk across the water as hop from rock to rock. Naruto came into view a few moments later.

"Oi!" she called. "Naruto!"

The boy, who was sitting on the wet sand, gasping, looked up, and broke into a wide grin at the sight of her. He waved, but didn't speak until she got over.

"How is he?" the boy asked.

"He hasn't changed," she said, softly. "But it's to be expected."

Naruto nodded. "Bastard," he said, thinking of the neglectful healer.

Sakura knew whom she meant. "Yeah." She paused. "How's the training going?"

"Well enough," said Naruto, shrugging. "I'm getting there."

Sakura's eyes widened. "You are? Already?"

Naruto laughed, and shook his head. "Nope! But it sounds better if I say yes, 'cause then it doesn't look like I've been doing absolutely nothing!"

She was tempted to kick sand in his eyes. She thought better of it, and instead cut out the middleman and kicked him in the side.

"Ow!" he cried. "That hurts!"

"That's probably a lie, too," she said, rolling her eyes. Her smile fell a little. "But it must be pretty difficult, I suppose."

"It is," said Naruto. "It feels totally wrong. I thought I might have had the_chakra_ control to do it, but I guess I'm still way lacking in that area."

"You're pretty good at some types of _chakra_ manipulation," said Sakura.

Naruto shrugged. "Maybe."

Sakura nodded, and then glanced out to sea. She thought she could almost see the sun, through the veil of grey mist, which looked a little lighter for a moment.

"I've been meaning to ask you," said Sakura, after a long pause. "What do you intend to do after this is all over?"

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno. Haven't thought that far ahead."

"You can't stay here, you know, not if you want to become Hokage." Her voice shook a little.

"We always have these serious conversations, don't we?" Naruto mumbled, slumping back onto the ground. "I wish we could have one conversation that wasn't so deep, you know, just a conversation between friends and stuff."

"Okay," said Sakura. "On that topic we discussed in Silvermoon, you never did give me an answer."

"Which topic?" Naruto asked.

"On whether or not you liked Kira."

"I don't like that conversation either. It's also too deep. Besides, I don't know."

"What do you mean?" she asked, glancing at him.

"I just don't know," he finally said. "I don't know if I like her like _that_ or not."

"You're a bad liar," Sakura said.

"I'm not lying!"

Sakura shrugged. "So answer my other question, then."

"I don't wanna think about it," said Naruto. "Not now, at least. It'd be stupid. There's still so much to do."

"I guess this place has grown on you, then?" Sakura said, very quietly. "A long time ago, you would've chosen Konoha in a heartbeat."

"Yeah," said Naruto. "I would've. But a lot has happened, right?"

Sakura nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

"I'll say this, though…" Naruto glanced at Sakura. "No matter what, I'm still keeping my promise to you, you know? That hasn't changed, and it never will. We'll find that bastard, and bring him back, and make him see just how stupid he was for leaving us." He flashed her a smile.

She returned it, along with a nod, before silence reigned.

A little later, Sai appeared, and found them in that same state.

"What's up?" said Naruto, sitting up.

Sai smiled. "He's awake, it would seem. Though there are some complications."

* * *

Once inside, Sakura rushed to the old orc's bed; pale and emaciated, Master Kang was propped up against two pillows and was staring straight forwards, even though there was nothing before him. His face was completely emotionless, which was a remarkable feat considering his condition. Kakashi stood by his bedside with Yamato; the healer hovered in the back, staring uneasily at Kang's conscious form, and frequently staring at Sakura now as well, knowing her part in it. 

But the first thing Sakura noticed was not his thin body or his expressionless face; it was the vacancy in his stare, and the cloudiness in his eyes, that told her what Sai had been talking about.

"He's blind," said Naruto, the first one to speak since they arrived. He glanced at Sakura.

The girl gave a helpless shrug. "It couldn't have been caused by the attack, I—"

"No," the old orc said, completely still, so much so that it appeared as if the words had sprung out of nothing. "My eyes have failed me in the last ten years. It is no fault of yours."

"How are you feeling?" Sakura asked, leaning over to brush some sweat from the orc's forehead, as she scanned up and down his body.

"My left toe aches," said Kang. "As does most of my right leg and most of my chest, mostly surrounding the six ribs that were recently repaired, rather shoddily, by that human healer who took care of me before."

Sakura blinked. "I see," she said. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes," Kang said. "Perhaps the one who smells like spices would like to fetch me something. He probably works in a kitchen, it's so strong."

Everyone but Naruto sweat-dropped. It took Naruto a little longer to figure out whom the orc was talking about.

"Hey! I'm no servant!" Naruto bellowed.

The orc frowned. "You smell like one. My mistake."

While Naruto silently seethed, Kakashi took a step forwards, and cleared his throat.

"Are you strong enough to answer some questions?"

"As I'll ever be, boy," Kang said.

Kakashi nodded, though he sweat-dropped at the "boy" comment. "What happened on the day Ravenholdt fell?"

"It was far too fast for any of us to expect it. Too amazing, I might add, and too horrible for any living creature to imagine. What happened that day put me in my place, I should think…it put almost all of my comrades in their graves, as well."

"How many attackers were there?"

Kang turned his head very slowly to look at Kakashi. His face remained a stony wall, though his head tilted slightly in thought. "Two."

"Is there anything that you can say about them?"

"I can say many things, though I cannot describe their appearance in words, if that is what you are asking." Finally, a rueful smile appeared on the old orc's face. "I don't see much, after all."

"If I might say," said Yamato. "You don't seem to be too much in grief for your comrades."

"What point is there?" Kang said, with a quiet, wet laugh, which turned into a coughing spree that took a few moments to subside. "We were assassins. They did not die then, because from the moment they became a Ravenholdt assassin, they lost their lives. I cannot grieve for those that I never knew, now can I?"

Yamato nodded, letting Kakashi continue.

"Do you know where they came from?"

"No," said Kang. "But I have an idea, especially since there have been tales of at least one of them—the greedy one, I should think."

"Greedy one?" said Kakashi.

"He spoke of money as he fought, commenting on the riches that Ravenholdt had. I daresay it no longer has them. The other one spoke of divine judgment, and was very loud, and the greedy one told him to shut up a number of times." Kang turned his head back to staring straight forwards. "Girl—bring me a cloth. I think I might dirty these sheets with my phlegm."

Sakura nodded, and fetched one from her bags. She held it out to him, and he immediately grasped it without a single fumble or tentative grab. He coughed into it twice, and wiped the green spittle away.

"You said there might be tales of this one, then?" said Kakashi.

"More reports. It is theorized that he is connected to, perhaps even a governing member of, the Syndicate."

Naruto's ears perked at that. "You mean those thieves and criminals that are found all over this place? He's part of them?"

"Perhaps," Kang said.

"Where would we find this Syndicate?" Kakashi asked.

"They have a headquarters to the west, in a run-down castle near the bottom of one of the mountains. They generally keep to themselves, though recently they have been acting up quite spectacularly—making raids every so often on smaller towns in the area and moving into Arathi and the Alterac Mountains."

Kakashi frowned, but nodded to this. "Is there anything else you could tell us that might lead us to find these two?"

"One is large, but treads softly," said Kang. "The greedy one. It's obvious he has a lot to lose. The other is brash and moves like a juggernaut, killing anything in his path and letting anything in his path strike him. Both of them stink of blood, but one is old blood and the other is very fresh. One is quick, the other is slow. Both of them are devils in human form."

Naruto exchanged a confused glance with Sakura, but Kakashi seemed to understand, as he simply nodded.

"We'll let you rest."

"Not too long. I don't want to be kept in that human's care much longer."

"That won't be a problem," said Sakura. "We'll move you somewhere else, as soon as you are ready."

"Good."

Kang sat back, and seemed to fall immediately asleep, as Kakashi guided them away from the bed to the opposite end of the room, where he gathered them around him.

"I want to check out this Syndicate," said Kakashi, "but I'm afraid to leave Kang-san here unguarded."

"Because of him?" Naruto asked, nodding to the doctor, who still hovered near them, like a rat in sight of food.

"That and other reasons," said Kakashi. "So I only want a few of you to go."

"I'll go," said Yamato. "I'll take Sai with me."

Sai blinked, and looked at Yamato. "Ah? Really? I didn't think you'd be able to stand being near me much longer, Yamato-san."

Yamato ignored him. "That'll leave all of you to guard Kang-san. Besides, it'd be easier for us to enter, if there are only two—they'll probably be used to espionage, especially if their leader is who Kang-san thinks he is."

"Fine," said Kakashi, nodding briskly. "I want you to leave immediately. The rest of the time we'll spend here—maybe we can get some more out of Kang-san. Naruto, I also want you to tell all that we heard to Tsuwabuki, so that she can relay it."

"Right," said Naruto.

Yamato nodded. "We'll head out then," he said, looking at Sai. "Get our stuff. Make sure we have enough supplies."

Sai gave an obedient nod, said goodbye to Sakura and Naruto, and quickly departed. Yamato did not stay much longer than to talk with something in private to Kakashi, before leaving as well.

"Naruto," he said, as he left, "Take it easy on your training, and try not to use the Kyuubi's _chakra_, if you can. We have yet to fully hone your use of it, remember."

"Right," said Naruto, with a nod. "Wasn't planning to anyways."

Yamato nodded, and was gone.

Sakura returned to Kang's bed, while Naruto and Kakashi went to one of the taverns to get food to bring back. The sky above remained the same drab, stinking black, but in the distance, far out at sea, Naruto could see the shining sunset, just peaking through the thick clouds and mist. There was a warm breeze, which lifted Naruto's spirits slightly, as they ordered the food and went to sit down at a small corner booth to wait for it.

"How's the training going?" asked Kakashi. "I've been meaning to ask."

"Good," said Naruto. "But slow." He flexed his right hand, and grit his teeth at the stiffness and pain he felt in it. The cuts and bruises on it had mostly healed and had become nothing more than small lined scabs, but it still ached.

"Do you believe it's possible?"

"Dunno," said Naruto. "Won't stop me from trying."

Kakashi nodded. "No, I don't suppose it would." He smiled a little. "One of your better points, I suppose, in a way."

Naruto flashed him back a bright grin. "I think so!"

"There's something else I've been meaning to ask."

"About what?" Naruto already had a feeling, from the man's tone and the slight narrowing of his exposed eye.

"Sasuke."

Naruto's face scrunched up in annoyance. "What about him?"

"You still intend to do what you promised?"

"Of course."

"No matter what? Sasuke will have changed a lot in these past few years. You have as well. Being under Orochimaru's wing will not be without its effects, and no matter how strong-willed Sasuke is, there is a good chance that some of what Orochimaru preaches may reach him. You already know that they both share views on power."

Naruto looked away, across the tavern, watching the scant few patrons it held. Two men sat in one of the corners, gambling, and another sat with a whore, and was feeling her up and making it obvious of his intentions, despite the fact that she looked quite bored. A maid was serving another table of three men, and that was it, so Naruto wasn't able to distract himself for too long before he had to respond.

"I guess it doesn't matter," he said. "Sasuke might have changed, but I don't care. I'm still going to bring him back, and fulfill my promise, no matter what. He has a lot to answer for."

Kakashi nodded, and was silent for a long while.

* * *

"Hey, Kurenai-sensei," Kiba called, "you sure you should be up there?" 

The dark-haired woman glanced down. "Don't coddle me, Kiba. I'm not a child."

"No, you're not," he affirmed, with a nod, "but you'll give Asuma-sensei a heart-attack one of these days if you don't take care of yourself more, especially in your condition."

Kurenai sighed, before casting her eyes back over the city. She had gone outside to get away from this—though she meant well, Hinata was horribly overprotective; she'd make a great mother, however. Shino was no better, though he didn't say anything and just did things that Kurenai could easily do herself, and made it clear to her that she shouldn't be doing anything in her condition.

They acted like she was made of glass—she was only _a_ _month_ pregnant.

"Come on down! Akamaru and I will take this place!"

"I'm fine, Kiba," she called. "Just because you're a _chuunin_ now, does not make you in any way my superior or my equal. You should be listening to me."

"What? I can't hear you!" said the boy with ears as sharp as a dog's.

She twitched. She wondered why she had wanted to be pregnant in the first place. If any of her children were like this….

Finally realizing that she wasn't going to come down, Kiba did the next best thing. He took a flying leap and mounted the wall in two steps, landing neatly beside her, perfectly balanced and upright. Akamaru landed not a second later, and sat on his haunches, panting and watching her.

"Been up to anything?" Kiba asked, grinning at her.

"No," said Kurenai. "Everything is quiet."

"Not in the castle, apparently," said Kiba. "Hinata told me something was happening in the chapel—they think they discovered something."

"Oh?" said Kurenai, glancing back towards the castle. "Is anyone with them?"

"Hinata, I think."

Kurenai nodded, and said nothing more.

Kiba waited a while in silence, and then asked, point blankly, "Why'd you take this mission, Kurenai-sensei?"

"What do you mean?"

"Asuma-sensei, I doubt, would've wanted you to come. So why would you put yourself in danger, willingly, when you've got something like that…" he motioned at her stomach, "…to protect?"

Kurenai said nothing for a while. "You weren't even supposed to know," she then said.

"Hinata's eyes are pretty good aren't they?"

Kurenai nodded. "It's easy to understand why I came."

Kiba frowned. "How so?"

"I suppose I'm a bit scared…" she said. "Afraid of what's to come. It seems even more terrifying than putting my life on the line. I know something big is going to change for me—I'm just scared of that, because I know it's going to happen, and I can do nothing to change that. And it's going to be completely new, as well, so even though I know technically what's going to happen, I don't know how I'm going to handle it."

Kiba gave a little nod, and a shrug. "How much did you bully Asuma-sensei into letting you go?"

"Not so much bullying as limiting the time he has left," said Kurenai, with a slight smile.

Kiba frowned, tilted his head, understood, and gagged.

Kurenai laughed. "Such a child—"

Kiba's head suddenly snapped to the side. Akamaru began to growl. Both of them sniffed the air.

Kurenai looked at him. "What is it?"

"Something bad," said Kiba. "Really bad. I smell a lot of blood somewhere, getting really close." He narrowed his eyes. "It's fresh, too, and there're are two of them, I think. Whoever they are, though, I've never smelt anything like them—and they don't smell friendly at all." He nodded to Akamaru. "He says the same thing."

Kurenai stood up. "Where is it?"

Kiba waited for a moment. He looked down, and to the right.

"Here, pretty soon."

* * *

"What is it?" Kira said, jumping up. Kylia had come to the table, her eyes wide, and Tsuwabuki was looking at all of them, wagging her long, beautiful tale, and waiting for the ancient priest to speak. Benedictus had his hands on the table, and he had not stood up yet; he was staring at the book in front of him, where Kira could just see the same image she had just reproduced emblazoned in a column of the page. Her breathing gradually quickened, partially from excitement at the possibility of one of the identities of the killers being revealed, and partially from fear as she gazed into Benedictus' grave and impossibly deep eyes. The old man did not move for a moment, and the room became cavernous with the tense silence, as they waited for him to speak, to do anything. 

Finally, he looked up. His eyes met Kira's.

"Send for Coutrend. I want him to be here for this."

Kira nodded immediately to Kylia. The girl hurried off, and not five minutes later, returned with Coutrend in tow, the man looking for once less cynical and bitter and more inquisitive and excited. Following him was the dark-haired kunoichi, Hinata, whom Kira had only spoken to a few times she had arrived, and who reminded her a little of Kylia, though Kylia denied it whenever she brought the thought up. Hinata entered no further than the door, standing a little off to the side and watching everyone with her pale lavender eyes. They caught Kira's briefly, and the girl gave her a shy smile. Very like Kylia _indeed_.

Coutrend swept behind Benedictus, snapping his eyes to the page. His eyes immediately went wide.

"Of course," he said. His lip curled. "The Forbidden Faith."

"It is why we could think of it, but not name it—it is taboo to mention its name," said Benedictus. "I had a feeling, but I could not be sure, nor could I picture that symbol until you drew it for me, Kira."

"Why?" Kira said.

"Taboo," said Benedictus. "Of the highest order—such so that even if you can remember some details of it, unless the name is written right in front of you, which is difficult, since even writing the name is physically impossible for human hands, and unless you possess some other physical evidence of its existence, such as that symbol, which is even more important to the faith than its name, you will not be able to name it or grasp hold of its concept any more than you can hold water in your hands. The taboo was placed on it by the Kirin Tor and the Church of Holy Light, during the end of the Third War."

"Even if it's written in that book, you didn't know it was there?" Kira asked.

"Even the symbol is easy to gloss over, unless it is written in front of you, since, as I said, that symbol is even more important that it's name. But give me a break, I am old, and my eyes are not what they used to be," he said, with a slightly bitter snort.

"What is it, then?" Kylia asked.

"_Jashin_," Benedictus said. "The Evil Heart. The utter opposite to the faith of the Holy Light, which we all follow here. More a cult, if you will, but one that was more effective than anything we might do, and had it lasted any longer than it did, might have soon surpassed our own faith."

Kira frowned. "I've never heard of it."

"Then the taboo did its intended job," said Benedictus. "It was a horrible practice that extended from the very beginning of Holy Light worship. Our religion calls for us to use all that is good in humanity—it requires faith in them and in ourselves, and it requires us to uphold the Three Virtues—respect, tenacity, and compassion—and work with them to make the world better, and to enhance our connection with the world and the universe. It requires the utmost dedication and wisdom, because people are not perfect and must strive to make themselves better if they want to help others and the world. Now, Jashin is the opposite of that—they call all of this pointless, because it is attempting to deny what is in every person's heart, no matter who they are or what they look like—the force of _evil_. They worship this primal feeling, something that no matter how dedicated one is, one cannot completely rid oneself of it. It is something eternal in their eyes, and eternity is not something that the Holy Light has faith in. The hearts of men are constantly in flux, and can constantly change—they can go from a hero to a monster as easily as ice can become water. The followers of Jashin believe it is a crime to deny that evil in one's heart, which is the only thing eternal in our lives."

"But," said Kira, "that's not true. We don't deny evil in our hearts."

"Yes," said Benedictus. "But people will always convince themselves that they are right, no matter what. Perhaps they understand this, but choose to ignore it, because to them it is wrong."

As pathetic as that sounded, Kira knew it to be true. Why else would the people of her kingdom choose to ignore the kindness of the other races, and embrace their older hatred of them? She shook her head. "This explains who they are, I suppose. But what else is there?"

"Jashin was destroyed," said Benedictus, softly.

"What? How?" Kira asked.

"I do not know. Their headquarters were in Lordaeron—they were among the few to have survived the undead Plague's effects, and the Scourge's coming to that place. They were hired by both the Alliance and Horde as mercenaries in previous wars—for quite a small amount of money, incidentally, because one of their beliefs is that they can never go a day without spilling blood, and whenever they enter battle, they can never leave their opponents alive. They worshiped slaughter as we worship compassion. Another reason was because they have an ability which aptly fits their belief in the eternity in their hearts—their priests had the ability to stay alive, no matter how many wounds they took."

"W-what?" Kira gaped. "But how—?"

"Again, I do not know," said Benedictus. "Until now, of course, but I'll answer your first question before I say. Sometime after the end of the last war, a report arrived that spoke of a fire in the mountains near Alterac in Lordaeron. Further investigation revealed that the fire stemmed from a small village—the village composed entirely of Jashin worshippers."

He took a heavy breath. "Most shocking about this, of course, was not that there was a fire; but that every one of the priests had been slain. Understandably, it was disturbing because as far as records of them go, not a single Jashin priest's death had ever been confirmed. Certainly they have fallen in battle, but that never lasts long."

"But, how can that be possible?" said Kira again. "They're all human, right?"

"Oh yes. Only humans could be capable of such a philosophy," Benedictus said.

Kira knitted her brows together, wanting to say something opposing that, but decided against it and instead said, "So if they're all dead, then who killed them?"

"I knew not at the time," said Benedictus. "Not that I cared much, however—I was understandably overjoyed that such an awful practice had been eliminated; such irony that they'd been as cruelly slaughtered as any of their victims made me a happy man—now however, it is clear to me that they were slain by one of their own."

"What gives you that idea?"

"Just a hunch," said Benedictus. "Description of their demise was unclear, at best, though most of it likely comes from my unwillingness to read further after hearing that they had been killed."

Kira stared at him. "That doesn't seem like you."

"It was me," said Benedictus. "You'll find I'm a very vindictive person, especially when it comes to my faith. I do not like anyone calling my faith hypocrisy, which is exactly what those Jashin priests would have done. They despised the Holy Light, more than anything. It should come to no surprise that I despise them just as much—and therefore you understand why I am irritated that one of them yet remains."

"But you haven't said why you think it was these people," said Kira. "Was one of their practices connected to how Magni died?"

"Quite," said Benedictus. "They had an ability that allowed them to use their immortal bodies to their advantage—they used a curse to bind their lives and bodies to a victim, meaning that any damage caused to them will be reflected onto those they have cursed. It is not unlike the_voodoo_ fetishes created by the trolls."

Kira nodded. "Is this linked to their immortal bodies?"

"Once, I would have said no, but now, I am certain of it. It is in fact the cause, and it was Kakashi's discovery that proved it."

"Wha—" Kira began.

The door burst open. Captain Eric and a guard rushed in, looking as if the world was ending around them.

"What?" Benedictus said snapping his ancient head in their direction, his eyes full of fiery life.

"We're being attacked!" Captain Eric nearly shouted, in desperation. "In the front courtyard, two of the shinobi and most of my guards have engaged battle against two attackers of unknown origin!"

"Two?" said Kira, "how—?"

"What is the status?" Benedictus interrupted.

"We're losing!" said Captain Eric. "We must get Kira-sama as far away as we can!"

* * *

Sasuke remembered everything as it had happened, but it now seemed no more real, and no more important, than the plot of a fairy tale. He did not care about it any longer, yet it haunted his mind and he didn't know why. He could remember the emotions he felt, but he could no longer feel them, no longer reenact them. Everything that had happened was as clear in his mind as if it had happened yesterday, and yet it served as nothing more than a reminder of what he now was, and would be for all eternity. It was almost as if it had not been him, as if he had been watching a play unfold, the beginning of a masterpiece whose ending he could not foresee, and like those forced to attend the show because of family members or friends urging them to, could not connect with the characters and feel their pain; because in the end it was just make believe and they could be doing better things than caring about people who don't exist. It felt like that, even though he knew it was true. 

He had taken them to a place that even now, Sasuke could not quite describe in visual terms. It had been too…awesome was the word, though he knew he would have hated to describe it like that once. He had never been to a place—not even his own home stained in his family's blood—that had projected such a singular, overriding emotion.

Fear.

It was not an overpowering fear, and nor was it sublime; it was an icy fear that dulled the senses without igniting them, that crept into his body and filled his veins and ran up his spine into his brain, touching every nerve fiber and cell in his body so that it shook without him even noticing, so that his entire body knew that he was afraid, even when he had deluded himself into thinking that it was just the cold, no matter the number of layers he wore above his bare flesh. He had even entertained, briefly, the idea that he had been excited, and was shaking with that. Who wouldn't be, with such power being offered?

But he had been wary of it. He had plans, plans that required power, yes, but power of his own and no one else's. He would see what this recent ally of Orochimaru had to offer. If it were not to his taste, then he would merely have to execute the plan a little earlier than he had intended. He could pull it off—he already knew he was stronger than Orochimaru. He had always been, especially with his eyes. They were eyes that, true, couldn't compare to his brother's, but they were the eyes of the Uchiha, and the Uchiha were the greatest clan in history. But Sasuke knew it wasn't his eyes that gave him such strength, but his desire, and that was something that Itachi did not have; which was why in the end, Itachi would lose.

But that hadn't mattered, in the end.

He had been taken to a place which seemed like a dream, now—he could scarcely remember its details, only recalling brief flashes of its general form: a limitless spire of ice and snow, stretching up into blackened skies. He did not remember entering, or leaving, and only recalled one part of it, the very top—a place that looked across the entire world, from which everything could be seen; like the Hokage's tower in Konoha, from which the Hokage could see the entire village.

A throne, he recalled. One of ice and pain, darkness and death.

From there, he remembered the screams.

They hadn't always been there, but they gradually came like the building wind, howling into his ear ever louder. He had been resistant to them at first, passed them off as tricks played by his mind and the wind, and then as nothing more than pathetic attempts to frighten him, and finally when they had become so loud that ignoring them was impossible, and the fear they had carried had leaked into every bit of Sasuke's soul, he had used only his bare will to stop himself from screaming in terror and fleeing the place in a heartbeat.

The fear was unnatural, powerful, impossible to ignore. The screams came in a deluge and Sasuke had almost been swept away.

He recalled amidst the screams, a figure, or perhaps two, or three, or many more, he couldn't really say. It had been dark and the figure had had no distinguishing features that he could remember, other than eyes that glowed with a light colder than absolute zero.

That's when things became disjointed, became almost impossible to remember. He couldn't remember, really, other than brief flashes. The figure had come to him. The screams, the _screams!_ He heard everyone: his mother, his father, Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi, his grandparents and his friends and _everything_! They screamed in his ear and he couldn't get rid of them no matter how he shook and roared for them to get away, no matter how hard he cried, and tore at himself to distract from the terrible, terrible _fear_!

The figure had come towards him. Right next to him. Eyes like blank white sheets staring down at him, freezing him, stopping him, but making him shiver more and scream louder, joining in the chorus of pain around him. He had looked up to it, felt it, felt the _nothing_ that it was. He hadn't been able to take it.

He had wanted, in that moment, to die.

That thought had stuck with him. Others had not. The next few moments had been pain; awful, black pain. The screams had come louder. The fear had taken him over, consumed him, he had become lost in it.

Then he remembered it speak, hearing it above the screeching of his mother's final moments, before his brother had killed her.

"_**You are ours."**_

Then, everything had frozen. The fear, the pain, the despair, the hatred. It had stopped, like an old watch, and then everything was gone. His heart had stopped, frozen, covered in a sheet of ice an inch thick, and everything it had contained was sealed away inside it, gone forever behind a cage of ice like diamond.

Now it was like a dream: a dream where he felt nothing. Where his goal was laid out before him, and all he needed to do was walk it until he met his brother's eyes and stabbed him through the heart.

It was amazing.

The figure had gone. But it whispered to him, now. Whenever it did, he could see it again, always as if he were dreaming it.

He glanced down at the small grouping of dirty, decrepit houses that made up Southshore. This was a dream, too. He could do whatever he wanted in this dream, kill as many people as he liked, and in the end, nothing would happen. It was beautiful—a dream that he could control no matter what.

It was a dream where he didn't have to feel the pain of life; where he could do anything, where he didn't have to _care_.

"Is everyone ready?" he said, softly into the air, which touched his skin but he did not feel it.

The group beside him all nodded. There was a flash of white teeth from his left as Suigetsu grinned and hefted his sword. To his right, Jugo's eyes were already widening, and his breath growing heavy, as dark markings began to bleed onto his face and neck and arms. Karin pressed up her glasses, beside Jugo, and nodded with a weak smile to Sasuke, which then bloomed into a horrible smirk.

"Good," he said, and leapt from his perch, speeding down the hill towards the town, making a seal with his hands.

'_Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Scourge'_

* * *

The shouts began at a little past midnight. 

Then began the bells—tolling awfully in the distance, but audible for miles around. Even though they were sequestered in the infirmary, it did not take long for them to hear, and witness, the most activity the town had even displayed. It came alive, with shouts and screams and frantic movement in the streets. Naruto and Sakura moved from the bed to the doorway, where Kakashi stood, staring out at the crowds of people pouring into the streets—whores, beggars, criminals, and the few ordinary folk, all rushing in a steady stream towards the beach.

"What's going on?"

Naruto knew before anyone else. A horrible smell reached his nose (which was stronger than anyone else's) and it was terrible familiar: rotten flesh and old blood, the damp smell of rotting lemons and mildew—the smell of death.

The Scourge.

"Shit!" Naruto said, bounding into the street. "Let's go! This place is in big trouble!"

"What is it?"

"Scourge!" Naruto shouted, gagging. The smell grew worse every second, as they approached. "They're coming!" Coldness began to form in his limbs, as he moved through the streets, towards the town's entrance, Sakura and Kakashi fast on his heels. A millions things ran through his mind, the first of them wondering where they were coming from, and the second wondering why they had come _now_ of all times. He rushed until his eyes burnt from the noxious smell, which seemed far worse than usual, and he suddenly stopped, aghast, when his eyes fell on something ahead of him.

Rolling like an evening fog, a green mist was slowly pouring into the town. The guards at the forefront, all in a line—the guards that did their job, which were few in Southshore—were in fits on the ground, gagging and clutching at their throats. Naruto could see sores beginning to appear on their flesh, eating away at it, making it pale and dead, as if they had died weeks ago.

Naruto's eyes widened. The fog grew thicker, as it approached, and even though he had never laid eyes on it before, he knew what it was. It stank to him, stank of things that he had smelled before in other places, in other forms, but the smell was just the same, and so was the feeling. An unbearable coldness, a chill in his entire being, and a fear that seemed entirely unreasonable.

The coldness grew worse.

"Shit," he said, and then louder, "Get back! We gotta get outta here!"

Sakura and Kakashi stopped at his side. "Why?" asked Kakashi.

"That's Plague," said Naruto. "Undead Plague, the stuff that makes the Scourge."

Sakura looked at him wildly. "We have to go!"

"I know!" Naruto said. "We have to get everyone out, as fast as we can—away from the city, you know?" He raised his hands, making a seal.

'_Kage Bunshin no jutsu'_

When the crowd of clones appeared, all around them, Naruto quickly gave his directions: find anyone straying behind, and get them out and away, and lead the ones as far from the town as possible. They scattered, immediately, flying into the crowds and through the alleyways, into the heart of the town. Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi then moved back, towards the infirmary, as fast as they could.

The airborne Plague continued to creep into the town, moving ever so slowly, like the final moments of sun before night blanketed the sky.

At the infirmary, Sakura quickly tried to rouse Kang, while Kakashi—shortly and without much patience, told the healer of the situation. The man, without any further ado, vanished through the door and into the quickly dwindling crowd of people. Neither Kakashi nor Naruto troubled themselves to think of his fate any longer.

Sakura was getting nowhere in trying to rouse Kang. "Please, you must get up," she said.

"I cannot," the old orc said, tiredly. "There are limits to what I can do, girl. I…cannot…get up."

"Naruto!" she said, turning quickly, desperately. "Help me!"

Naruto created more clones, half a heartbeat later, and they converged around the bed. Gently as they could, though accompanied by as much protest as the old orc could manage, they lifted Kang up, and went towards the door. Sakura quickly grabbed all of their things, mostly her medical tools, and tore after them, into the street.

It was deserted.

Two clones returned to Naruto's side. They disappeared in bursts of smoke, and Naruto nodded.

"Everyone's out," he said. "As far as I can tell. My clones are leading them down the beach."

"We have to go after them," said Kakashi.

He was right—the Plague fog was already well past the town limits, and was descending the street as slowly as a celebratory parade. But now, Naruto could see, there were shapes in it, drifting as slowly and ethereally as the fog itself. But he could see their eyes within—mirror-like and horrible, showing nothing but the hatred and hunger in all men. Behind them, there were bigger shapes as well, trundling along in slow, methodical strides; grotesque silhouettes in the darkness.

They ran. As strong as they were, Naruto knew they could not face something like this. Not alone. Naruto fell behind everyone else, continually glancing back into the fog as it crept closer, and though it terrified him with every look, it made him think.

Why weren't they attacking?

It didn't make any sense to just roll in, and let everyone leave. He quickened his pace a little, a sudden worry building in his gut. Could they be leading them to a trap? He unconsciously burst one of the clones, far off. He saw nothing— everything was fine. So why was he so frightened, and what were they doing?

He turned around again, just once, and caught something in the fog that made him stop, but not voluntarily. His body just seemed to seize up, on its own, as if shocked by an unknown source of electricity, and his eyes became fixed on this one spot in the green fog, where he could see a solid figure amongst the shambling, hazy shades. He could barely see it, it was little more than a shadow, but a familiar smell reached his nose, and even in the gloom, he could see the eyes as bright as if they were right there, staring not two inches away from his face. They were eyes that he'd seen in his dreams for two years, eyes that angered him, and scared him at the same time, but also drew his pity, and a deep nostalgia for a time when things seemed so much better.

They were the eyes of a devil, but at the same time, they were the eyes of his best friend, and his brother.

Sasuke.

Almost as he thought that name, the figure stepped from the green haze, fully formed. He wore a black cloak with furry, white trim, underneath which Naruto could see a skin-tight black, sleeveless shirt, and black pants with wide, flaring legs and black sandals tied all the way up to his knees. His face and his skin were paler than death, almost translucent, even with the little light that was shed upon them, so that Naruto could see every black vein in his body, which seemed to jump out like hideous tattoos. Sasuke's hair was still jet black, but longer, wilder than before, nearly covering his porcelain skin and frozen, emotionless face; with its two, blaring, devil-like_Sharingan_ staring straight out at Naruto as if from another world.

Sound seemed to drift away from Naruto. He couldn't hear anyone, or anything, and even in that moment of staring into Sasuke's eyes, he found it hard to even feel anything.

But inevitably reality took hold again. Naruto snapped from his daze, and the sound came back. Sometime ago, Sakura had stopped and noticed as well. She was by his side, or just a little behind him. Kakashi was standing on his other side.

"Naruto."

The single word that Sasuke uttered was enough to make Naruto recoil a little. It sounded like Sasuke, but different, as if from a dream you could barely recall. It awakened so many familiar emotions, but it brought entirely new ones as well, worse ones, that Naruto had trouble understanding as he stared into Sasuke's unblinking eyes.

"S-Sasuke," he said.

"I didn't expect," Sasuke said, softly, like the wind. "To see you here."

Naruto twitched. He began to shake.

"Yeah. You neither."

"Sakura," said Sasuke, with the barest of nods. "Kakashi-sensei."

"Sasuke," said Kakashi.

Sakura couldn't bring herself to speak.

It was about that time, that the horror fully struck Naruto. He nearly staggered, nearly toppled, nearly burst into tears, but instead he simply screwed up his face into the fiercest, growling glare he could affix without the Kyuubi's aid, though there might have been some anyways. Naruto's face seemed less human, when he became that angry, and he felt it too.

He spoke shortly, quietly, but each word carried the emotional force of a thousand explosive notes.

"_What the fuck do you think you're doing here?_"

Sasuke seemed to consider the question, though his face did not change from its frozen, ice-statue smoothness.

"What does it look like, _dobe_?" Sasuke said. Even without hint of a smile, the words still seemed cocky, like the old Sasuke. But the words that followed, though said in the same tone, were so wrong that Naruto's anger was blown away for a moment.

"I'm going to destroy this town, and everyone in it," he said. "Probably turn them into zombies, too."

Knowledge suddenly pounded itself into Naruto's head like carvings on a sculpture. His clones had been destroyed. He turned wildly.

"The beach!" he cried. "They're being attacked!"

Though Kakashi did not react immediately, as he was still recovering from Sasuke's horrible words, when they did hit him he bolted. He called Sakura without a thought.

Sakura lingered, simply staring at Sasuke in astonishment. He did not look at her.

Not once.

She went with Kakashi, automatically, her legs carrying her as far as possible from the source of the pain that she was now feeling, so deep inside her that no healing _jutsu_ could ever reach it.

Naruto stayed, staring straight at Sasuke. The other boy did not move, still as a corpse, for only a second more after Kakashi and Sakura had gone. Then, as the Plague continued to roll forwards, Sasuke vanished.

But Naruto saw him—he was fast, incredibly so, but not the fastest Naruto had ever seen and it allowed him to react quicker than Sasuke could attack—Naruto's sword met Sasuke's in a ring of steel, causing bright sparks to fly and both boys to emit a grunting sound. Naruto could feel no breath from Sasuke, even though he was standing right next to him, glaring into his _Sharingan _eyes.

It enraged him.

He pushed Sasuke off with all of his strength, accompanied by a boost of kinetic energy from Sasuke's strike reflected back through Naruto's blade. Thrown back, Sasuke scarcely had to time to recover before Naruto was upon him.

Naruto's blade moved so quickly that even with his eyes, Sasuke had trouble seeing it, and Naruto, move. The boy was generating a steady stream of elemental _chakra_, running it through his entire body in a fashion that Sasuke had never seen anyone duplicate before. It made Naruto incredibly fast, and it only became clear to Sasuke that this speed was a problem when Naruto got past his defense and smashed the flat of his blade into Sasuke's neck.

Sasuke fell back, and this allowed Naruto to move in, hardly visible, and knee the boy in the stomach, and then follow it with a brutal blow with the hilt of his sword, smashing into Sasuke's pristine, snow-white face. It hit with such power that Sasuke flew back, the blow jarring his senses.

But he recovered, lightning-quick.

There was no pain.

* * *

The beach was a massacre. 

The bodies of townsfolk were strewn everywhere, none of them intact. The ones that lived had fled into the rolling waves, screaming in an attempt to get away from the gigantic abominations that assailed them. The beasts lumbered as fast as they could, swiping their deadly weapons in every direction, taking only one blow to fell a human in a spray of blood, and then laughing greedily before finding another screaming, puny flesh-bag to kill. Ghouls of every size and shape feasted on the bodies of men and women, howling and snarling like wild animals as they reduced the bodies to nothing more than pools of blood, bone and skin on the sand, as if they were rotten fruit fallen from a great height and splattering on the ground below in a pile of stinking refuse.

The screams were the worst part, however.

Sakura had never seen anything like it. When she arrived, both she and Kakashi paused before rushing in, overwhelmed by the horror of what they saw. Sakura nearly vomited on the spot. The blood—strewn in such quantities that the sand color was outmatched; the bodies—littering every corner of the visible beach, ripped and torn into grisly piles of bloody flesh and half-eaten intestine and splattered brain and mangled skeleton; and the _smell_—bloody, decay, excrement and the salt of the sea air mixed into something so disgusting that she nearly fell to her knees right there.

Kakashi gripped her sternly, preventing this. "Don't. They need our help."

He hurtled down to incline to the beach without another word, and Sakura found the strength to follow a second later.

* * *

"W-wait," said Kira, "How can this be…?" 

"There's no time!" said Captain Eric. "We must get you to safety, Kira-sama, at once! There is no point in attempting to fight them now!"

"Are the attackers human, or what?" said Benedictus, who seemed calmer than he should have been.

"Human, I think," said Eric.

"What do you mean by 'I think'?"

"There are unnatural," said Eric. "Like monsters, they just don't die! They're more like Scourge than anything!"

Benedictus swept his head between Eric and Kira, and then nodded quickly. "Their target is doubtlessly you, Kira, though I don't know why they have decided such a direct route in. It would be pointless to initiate a direct attack, especially when they haven't even bothered to hide their forms, it seems to me. Why would they launch such a direct attack, when their goal is to cause a disruption in the alliance?"

"I don't know!" Eric said, "but they won't be stopped for long! Kira-sama must be taken somewhere else!"

In the back, Hinata had activated her _Byakugan, _and was seeking out the status of the battle.

"Calm down," said Benedictus. "Getting riled up will do you no good. Kylia, Miss Hinata," he said, glancing briefly at Hinata, "You will—" He stopped, because it took but a second for him to register the look on her face, and the sudden rigidity of her form, to know something was wrong. He then stepped forwards as she moved, and his hand flashed out to strike Captain Eric in the middle of his chest, emitting a burst of golden light and Eric flew back. Hinata hurtled herself at the guard who had come in with Eric, slamming her palm into his chest as he spun towards her, fury in his eyes. He was thrown back by the_Jyuuken_ strike, plowing into the pews.

Kira let out a strangled cry, her heart reacting before her head. "What are you—?"

"Kylia, get Kira as far away from here as you possibly can," said Benedictus. "Coutrend, Miss Hinata and I shall hold them here."

Tsuwabuki was growling, and backing away towards the door. She stared at Captain Eric's dead form, her amber eyes growing narrow, her hackles rising.

Kira sobered. This couldn't be right. Neither Benedictus nor Hinata would be so reactive without reason, so why…? She cast her eyes on the guard, sprawled amidst the pews, but there wasn't a guard there any more, but a man dressed in a black cloak adorned with red clouds, who was already standing up, grimacing and spitting up blood all over his chin.

"Fuck!" he snapped. "The fuck was that? Little bitch!" he growled. He reached for the weapon on his back, three-bladed scythe, and glared at the fallen Captain Eric. "The jig's up, Kakuzu!"

Captain Eric didn't move.

"The hell? You dead, Kakuzu?" the man said, angrily, and now confused. "Shit! What a fuckin' waste!"

"No doubt," said Benedictus, calmly. "You are the Jashin worshipper." He frowned, also noticing the headband that hung around the man's neck, three diagonal slashes with a long, crude, horizontal cut bisecting them.

The silver-haired man stared at him. "So you know, eh? Good, that saves me of telling you how much I hate your faith, and how much I'm going to enjoy killing you." He reached for the three-bladed scythe on his back, which hung on a long chain attached somewhere beneath his cloak.

Kylia gripped Kira by the arm. "K-Kira, let's go."

Kira nodded, and let herself be pulled towards the door, Tsuwabuki loping at her heels, as Benedictus scoffed. The old man pulled back his golden sleeves and flexed his wrinkled, but powerful hands, and took a step towards the_Jashin_ priest. "I'm going to enjoy this, as well. I have never had an opportunity to meet one of you in combat, and I'm glad that will change, because I also despise your meaningless faith."

"Meaningless!" the man roared. "Fuckin' heathen! I'll tear you apart!"

"We'll see," said Benedictus.

The three-bladed scythe blurred as the man closed the distance, striking downwards and slamming instead into a golden shield conjured by Benedictus. The old man then thrust out a hand, making a portion of the shield bulge out and fire like a bullet, though the man ducked beneath and suddenly launched himself forwards, releasing his grip on the scythe and letting it fly past Benedictus, towards Kira.

Hinata shot towards it. Tsuwabuki and Kylia shot towards Kira. Coutrend and Benedictus shot towards the man, who let out a brief burst of triumphant laughter, before a glowing sword pierced his chest, and a fire ball, issued by Coutrend, exploded in his face, and neither his expression could be seen nor his voice heard.

Hinata spun, releasing a spinning wall of _chakra_ from every one of her _tenketsu_.

'_Kaiten!'_

The whirling _chakra_ blasted the scythe out of Kira's way and into the far wall next to the pews. Tsuwabuki pulled Kira back towards the door, as Kylia stood in front, her weapons drawn. But even as Hinata finished the attack and came to a stop, something smacked her in the chest, issued with such force that she heaved a spray of blood from her mouth, and was thrown backwards. She struck the wall beside the door, making Kira cry out and Kylia whirl around in defense.

Benedictus and Coutrend spun as well, as something huge and black moved in front of them, barring their vision, faster than they could register, a mere shadow out of the corner of their eyes. It struck both of old men at once, hurtling them into the pews, which were scattered in disarray.

"Fuck, Kakuzu," the silver-haired man hissed, growling as he wiped the blood and charred skin from his face until only pulsing, bleeding muscle could be seen on his right cheek. He stood up, and with a flick of his wrist, pulled the scythe back to his grip with the chain. "I didn't think you'd be getting up anytime soon, though you might have been trying to teach me one of those 'lessons' of yours."

The man he spoke to—if he indeed was a man—seemed to ignore him, focusing his attention solely on Benedictus and Coutrend, who were getting slowly to their feet. Kakuzu wore a black cloak similar to the silver-haired man's, but it was done up completely to the high collar. Most of his face was obscured by a mask and hood, so that only his deep, discolored eyes were visible—like photo negatives, they were black with white pupils. His skin was somewhat dark, from what they could see of it, and across his head he wore a headband, but unlike the other man, his was a large downward pointing arrow, with a slash mark across it, carved by a crude weapon.

"Hey!" the silver-haired man said. The wounds on his face were almost healed, Benedictus vaguely noted. "Answer me when I fucking talk to you, moron!"

"Shut up, Hidan," said Kakuzu, calmly. His pale eyes were boring holes into Benedictus, as the ancient man wheezed and gasped for breath, clutching his wounded stomach.

Benedictus quickly glanced behind Kakuzu, though he was afraid to take his eyes off the man for even a moment—he had rarely seen somebody move so quickly. Behind him, Kira was helping Hinata to her feet, and healing the prodigious wound on her chest, while Kylia and Tsuwabuki guarded them both. Hinata was staring at the man wildly.

"You survived," said Benedictus, coughing. "I thought for sure that the girl had killed you—it must have struck your heart, did it not?"

"Perhaps," said Kakuzu. "Hidan, kill the girl. I'll deal with this one."

"Fuck no," snapped Hidan. "The Holy Light worshipper is mine. You can kill the kid."

"It would be unwise to underestimate this man," said Kakuzu. "Especially when it seems he has been researching your practice, you fool. I told you to clean up after yourself properly." He was staring at the scattered books and papers, and had seen the Jashin symbol that Kira had written down.

"I won't underestimate him," said Hidan. "Besides, you like killing kids, don't you?"

"Shut up," said Kakuzu. His eyes were constantly shifting, always as slowly and slightly as a glacier's yearly movement. They settled on Benedictus.

"For all your caution," said Benedictus, calmly, "your entrance was quite bold. How do you expect to keep this a secret?"

Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. "As one who is experienced in battle, you should know better than to ask that of your enemy, fool, just as you should be wary of talking to them as if we're in some sort of debate. You've already lost this fight."

So said, he moved. With blinding speed he crossed the room, appearing behind Kira and grabbing her by the head. Kira screamed, and tried to get free, as Kakuzu squeezed, her screams suddenly stopped.

There was a hideous crack, and Kira fell lifeless to the floor.

Benedictus roared, started forwards, but was forced back by Hidan's flying scythe. Hidan pressed forwards, rushing the old man with a look of insane glee on his face, drawing a small, black dagger from beneath his cloak and slashing it across Benedictus' robes. However, due to their volume, the blade was lost in the golden folds and didn't pierce his flesh, allowing Benedictus to throw all his weight forwards as the blade passed, slamming into Hidan's chest and throwing him back.

Coutrend moved in, brandishing a glimmering, clear short sword, forged of ice. He swung it at the off-balanced Hidan's head, but the man quickly ducked and rammed his dagger into Coutrend's stomach.

Coutrend gasped, shuddered, and dropped, as Hidan pulled away, leering as he licked the blade clean, and moved again towards Benedictus, whose wild eyes were solely fixed on Kira's body, lying still and misshapen on the floor.

No. No. No! That couldn't be—!

Kakuzu turned, issuing a loud curse. Tsuwabuki, by the man's feet, shot up and locked her mouth around his arm, biting as hard as she could, and raking her claws along his side. He swung her back against the wall, but she let ago and swung off, as Kakuzu threw a punch at Hinata's head, where she stood by the door. But the girl ducked beneath it, and smashed a hand into the Kakuzu's stomach. There was a flash of blue from the extraordinary amount of _chakra_ pressed into her _Jyuuken_ strike, but Kakuzu hardly flinched. Instead he made to grab Hinata's head, but again she dodged, moving backwards this time, as Kylia attacked Kakuzu from behind, with a frenzied, desperate cry.

She slashed her two daggers down, but instead of cutting Kakuzu's flesh, they were deflected off, with a metallic ring as if they had struck steel. Kakuzu swung around, striking the girl in the middle with a roundhouse kick, throwing her backwards into the wall opposite him.

Tsuwabuki attacked again. Opening her mouth, she issued a wailing bellow of compressed air that could've shattered stone. It knocked Kakuzu backwards, half a step, but the man quickly recovered and blurred in a frenzy of movement, snatching the fox up and throwing her across the room, into a shelve of books. She yelped as she struck and as the books fell on top of her.

Kakuzu growled, turning his attention away from the fox. "Come out, boy," he said aloud.

There was no response, and it seemed as if Kakuzu was talking to nothing but his imagination. Hinata, breathless and still wounded, kept her distance and waited for Kylia and Tsuwabuki to recover, which was slow as the girl had been hit quite hard, to the point where the stonewall had cracked at her meeting with it; and covered in heavy books, the fox was struggling to get up.

At the other end of the room, Benedictus had re-engaged battle with Hidan. Still clutching the dagger, and having reclaimed his scythe, the _Jashin_ worshipper was slashing and thrusting, driving the old man back along the row of pews, and up against the wall. Benedictus had not yet counterattacked.

Only a third of his attention was on Hidan, and though every bit of him told him to rectify that, he could not help but stare at Coutrend's body, which still shuddered with escaping life, and Kira's twisted form; it drew his eyes like flame drew moths, and no matter how hard he tried to remove it from his mind, he could not. Horrible despair was welling up inside him, against his will, against all he had been trained to do. But with that despair came something else, which he gladly focused on the attacking Hidan, who was growing impatient with the old man's ability to dodge.

"Come on, old man! ATTACK!" He lowered his weapons, and flung all his weight forwards; but like water slipping through the smallest of cracks in a glass, Benedictus slipped aside, and made a hand seal as Hidan smacked into the wall.

'_Gleaming Light'_

Beams of golden light coalesced around Benedictus, then shot simultaneously straight at Hidan, striking him up and down his legs, back and even through his head. The beams remained driven into Hidan's flesh, like spears, searing coin-sized holes in Hidan's body that began to bleed profusely, running into a pool at his feet. Hidan shuddered and coughed, but remained standing.

Benedictus couldn't see his face, as it was nestled against the wall. But staring at the shuddering man, he appeared less in pain, and more in ecstasy.

Kakuzu set his eyes on Hinata for the time being.

"Boy, you have lost the element of surprise. I know full well that that is not her body."

Again, silence. While Kylia gazed at Kakuzu's back, and then at Kira's body, in hopeful confusion, Hinata kept her eyes straight on Kakuzu. There was something wrong with him. She could see it, or at least she thought she could. The man's _chakra_ system was different, beyond anything she had ever seen. It coiled in places that it shouldn't have, and gathered in portions that had no relevant organs. Worst of all, she now knew why her _Jyuuken_ attacks had not affected him in the slightest.

It moved.

His _chakra_ system moved, writhing like a mass of snakes, slithering away from her attacks just as she made them, so that she hit nothing but flesh, which halved the damage of her attack. But if he could move his system, it meant that he could move his organs also, or else she would still injure him.

But how was that possible?

She had little time to consider it, however. The man was quick, and quite obviously knowledgeable of her ability; otherwise he wouldn't know that he had to move his _chakra_ system. The headband told him that he was from the Hidden Waterfall, and the cloak, too, told her that both of them belonged to the shinobi world.

They were Akatsuki.

Which meant that Akatsuki had killed Magni, and had likely been responsible for the Ravenholdt massacre, too. She didn't know why. Why would a shinobi organization concern itself with the affairs of this world, regardless of whether they had prior knowledge of it? What was their purpose for this?

Her mind raced through these thoughts as she watched the man, who stood stock still, his eyes staring straight forwards. They didn't stare into hers, thankfully, but somewhere slightly behind her. She could see him, too, but didn't want to give that away. But he had to act, or his chance would be ruined.

So she decided to help.

She took a stance by bending her knees and setting her legs far apart, taking a deep breath and staring straight at Kakuzu. Her movement did not go unnoticed, and he shifted his eyes very slightly to look directly at her, and that's when she moved.

'_Shugohakke Rokujuyon Sho'_

She spun, but this time instead of a wall of _chakra_ being produced, thin beams of_chakra_, no bigger than needles, erupted from her body, hurtling forwards in a deadly cloud that resembled a cloud of cherry blossoms blown by a violent wind. Each blade was strong enough to tear steel, and flew faster than an arrow.

Kakuzu moved, quick as lightning striking, and dodged the streams of _chakra_ by leaping to the side just so that Hinata's cloud passed by his body by no more than an inch, and then streaked towards her with the same infernal speed. Hinata backpedaled, catching sight of something going up Kakuzu's arm—creeping along his flesh was a dark film, making his arm change from a light brown to a dark grey—as Kylia, in the direct path of Hinata's attack, leapt to the side to where Tsuwabuki stood, shaking. Kakuzu didn't stop advancing, and lifted his hand to deal a fatal blow to Hinata, just as Shino decided that there was no better time to act than now.

Kira's body burst in a black cloud, and from the window behind Hinata, a black swarm of buzzing insects erupted, shooting in four rod-like streams around Hinata and engulfing Kakuzu's arms and legs. Shino appeared a second later, leaping through the window and landing without a sound behind Hinata. They both dove to the side, for Kakuzu had not even stopped to notice the bugs feasting on his limbs. The giant turned, growling in annoyance, as Hinata and Shino moved away from him, back towards the middle of the room, where they were soon joined by Kylia and Tsuwabuki.

"Where's Lady Kira?" Kylia asked.

"Safe," said Shino, calmly.

"What happened to Kiba and Kurenai-sensei?" Hinata asked, gasping for breath, having expended a sizeable amount of _chakra_ in her failed attack.

"They are injured, but safe as well," said Shino.

Above the buzzing, Kakuzu heard this. "Oh? So they aren't dead, then? I thought for sure I had stomped in that woman's head. Perhaps a _Kawarimi_ took me by surprise."

Behind them, Benedictus waited as Hidan attempted to remove himself from the spears, his despair and ire gradually decreasing as Kira's assured safety washed over him. A dozen prayers ran through his mind, and as his mind cleared, he addressed Shino.

"Why hasn't the alarm been raised?"

Shino's answer was surprisingly calm.

"They are all dead."

"It must be raised," said Benedictus. "I need someone to do that, now."

"You're joking," said Kakuzu. "That won't be possible."

"Oh?" said Benedictus. "Why not?"

"I will not allow any of you to leave," said Kakuzu, "and even so, I have killed every guard in this castle, and the outposts beyond it. It will take over half an hour for the others to notice, by which time you will all be dead, and the blame diverted. We have already planted the necessary information. It just awaits discovery." He began casually brushing the destruction bugs off his arms, as if they were just flies.

"Yeah," grinned Hidan, turning around and revealing his hideously malformed visage, drenched in blood. "You guys are dead—especially you, old man. I'm going to get a hell of a lot of pleasure gutting a heathen like you, like I did your buddy over there," he said, licking his lips, and pointed at Coutrend.

Benedictus' eyes shifted briefly. Coutrend was dead, and though Benedictus could feel it— the despair of another lost friend—it was not as fierce as before. He would not be joining the archivist right now.

"So," grinned Hidan. "How about we begin round two?"

Kakuzu very slowly nodded. "Don't die, Hidan."

"Shut the fuck up, Mr. Fucking Hilarious."

* * *

Sasuke flew forwards. Naruto held his ground. Sasuke's blade—long, thin, slightly curved—a perfect _katana, _given to him by Orochimaru—flickered like a striking snake, moving towards Naruto's shoulders and head. 

Naruto was completely stunned by the target area, and affronted. His eyes grew wide when Sasuke's blade whistled by his head, slicing a thin gash in his cheek, drawing blood.

Sasuke used this advantage. He pressed forwards, seeing Naruto's moves laid out before him, as if they had already happened. He saw every move Naruto was going to make in the next few seconds. The boy was making it easy, in his astonishment of Sasuke's attack, which was clearly directed towards taking his life. Sasuke feinted low, and then sliced up high.

But Naruto's blade was there, as if by magic, to meet it.

But at the last second, Sasuke's tactics changed. He ran a current of_chakra_ through his weapon.

'_Chidori Nagashi'_

A bolt of purplish electricity crackled along the length of Sasuke's blade, as it struck Naruto's. Regardless of whether Naruto was clutching a wooden hilt or not, the electricity should have struck him, entirely created and fueled by _chakra_ as it was. That was the beauty of the attack—other than dodging, it had no defense. It could even travel through solid _chakra_ of any sort.

But even as it struck, and the lightning crackled in a flurry of purplish sparks, Naruto didn't drop his sword in anguish, or even appear bothered by it. Instead, the boy thrust Sasuke's blade off, gave an enraged cry, and slammed the flat of the blade into Sasuke's right arm, where it discharged the stored up electricity into Sasuke's body.

Though every nerve fiber in Sasuke's body was as effectively useless as if it had been entirely frostbitten (which was not so far from the truth), Sasuke still felt the jolt of electricity in his body through the sudden failing of his limbs. He dropped back, and Naruto came forwards, driving a dozen kicks into his chest.

Sasuke flew backwards. Naruto attacked again, summoning clones.

Bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard! Naruto roared in his head, and then aloud, as his clones converged on Sasuke. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe this was happening. Sasuke, Sasuke couldn't be_this_! He couldn't be! Sasuke would never stoop so low, so disgustingly degraded to the point where he could give up his humanity just to…

'_Naruto Rendan!'_

His clones kicked Sasuke upwards, throwing him into the air. Naruto jumped off the back of his clone, and propelled himself up with an extra burst of speed, using _air-grasping_, and did a flip in mid-air. Sasuke stared at him the whole time.

Naruto roared in fury. "BASTARD!"

He brought his leg down in a bone-breaking axe-kick, slamming into Sasuke's middle and throwing him like a meteor to the earth, where he landed in a crater of dirt and rock, amidst the constantly moving green fog of Plague. Naruto jettisoned himself back, using_air-grasping_, and landed a save distance away from the Plague veil.

Sasuke had already gotten to his feet. Despite the jarring force and the amazing power of Naruto's kicks, he had hardly felt a thing. He flexed his body a few times, making it crack obscenely. He kicked his sword up into his hand, all the while staring straight at Naruto.

"Why the hell did you do this, Sasuke?" Naruto said, through grit teeth, his entire body shaking with built up rage. "Why?"

Sasuke cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean your fucking humanity!" Naruto screamed. "Why'd you give it up? For power? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"That should be obvious, Naruto."

"It isn't," Naruto said, growling. "How stupid are you?"

"Obviously not as much as you," said Sasuke. He made a few seals, which Naruto recognized and quickly began to match, as Sasuke's hand plummeted to the ground.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu: Abomination'_

Naruto's fell a second later.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu: Undercity Guardian'_

There were two explosions of smoke—and from one of noxious green emerged an abomination, complete with its three hideous weapons—a hook and chain, a butcher's cleaver, and a grossly enlarged meat-tenderizer—and its hideous patchwork skin and exposed insides, which hung like drapes from the cavity in its stomach, large enough to fit two men easily inside. From the other smoke, which was pure white, emerged a beast almost identical; although this one was the color of moldy cheese and its insides were bright, neon green. Instead of a meat-tenderizer, it had a huge, misshapen claw instead, with four long talons dripping with gore.

Sasuke's look did not change.

"**OI,"**the Undercity Guardian rumbled, staring blearily around. "**THOUGHT HAD DUTY…HEHE…DUTY. FUNNY WORD."**

In spite of his anger, Naruto found time to be exasperated as well. Why was everything he summoned stupid, mean or just annoying?

"You do!" Naruto shouted, causing the beast to half turn. "No don't turn! Kill that thing in front of you!"

The guardian turned back, focusing blearily on the abomination, which was already lumbering forwards. The guardian gave a burbling laugh.

"**BAD,"**it said. "**YOU'RE BAD.**"

The abomination did not say anything, instead raising its meat cleaver and bellowing unintelligibly. The Undercity Guardian moved to meet it, roaring "bad" constantly, and slamming its full weight into the creature, which was no smaller than itself. Their third arms, attached to their backs, dug their respective hooks into their bodies, while the Undercity Guardian's claw bit into the abomination's back, and held it fast.

As they grappled, Sasuke moved. Around the fighting abominations, he made a beeline for Naruto, who had already finished another summon.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu: Forsaken'_

From the blast of smoke, a crowd of zombies emerged, but they were not the same as the ones that followed behind Sasuke. They were entirely clothed, and looked completely alert, though they made no sound or protest at Naruto's summon, which was odd, until Naruto remembered what Sylvanas had told her about the summoning contract, when he had first made it. Only her fallen warriors were included in it, only those who had given their un-lives in her service were honored with it. These were dead Forsaken, given back their chance to fight.

"Distract him!" Naruto shouted.

They did. Two of them bull-rushed the oncoming boy, who blurred around them, slicing off their heads. But as soon as he was past them, the four that remained attacked. Two came forwards, circling around Sasuke. The other two sucked in gales of air and exhaled them in two enormous blasts of white-hot fire.

'_Pyroblast'_

The blasts engulfed Sasuke, or would have, had he not leapt into the air. The two other Forsaken followed, leaping up from behind and attacking with daggers. Sasuke spun, cleaving one apart and knocking the other back with a strike to its defending blades. He landed, but the mage Forsaken attacked again, this time with small bursts of flame that flew as fast as arrows, and were almost as large.

But his _Sharingan_ saw it all, and he dodged without effort, weaving and ducking between each fireball with but inches to spare. He went towards the mage Forsaken, but was caught from behind by Naruto, who drove the butt of his blade into Sasuke's armpit, and then swung around and roundhouse-kicked him in the face. Sasuke was hurtled back, straight into the side of his abomination summon, which turned at the sudden attack, opening itself up to having its head cleaved in half by Naruto's Undercity Guardian.

Sasuke recovered quickly, and launched himself at Naruto, as his abomination fell back and was quickly torn apart by the Undercity Guardian.

Naruto defended the first strike with his blade, but Sasuke's next attack came much quicker, and was thrown with much more ferocity than before, that he was unable to do much more than defend.

'_Kongou'_

His muscles hardened, through constant training and a clever manipulation of _chakra_, but it was not enough. Sasuke's blade struck Naruto's side, and resisted only a second before it cut into flesh and muscle. Naruto threw himself along with the attack, propelling him away, but in the process tearing away a sizeable portion of flesh. Pain blew a hole in Naruto's defense, and he found himself unable to think coherently, much less react, for a moment longer. Sasuke turned, raising the blade.

'_Mana Shield'_

'_Fire Blast'_

"**I SMASH!"**

A bluish dome leapt up around Naruto, delaying the blade's progress for a few seconds, allowing Naruto to jump back, just as a rolling stream of fire billowed past him, towards Sasuke. Sasuke dodged to the side, at the same time trying to avoid Naruto's Undercity Guardian, which had disentangled itself from its dead opponent, and was swiping at Sasuke with its deformed talons. The giant patchwork of skin and bone hurtled its chain at Sasuke, which he cut in two, and then he raised a hand, and without forming any seals, something huge and black erupted from his hands.

'_Chidori Katana'_

Black lightning—that's all that Naruto could say it was—coalesced around Sasuke's hand. He gripped it like he did his sword and it extended in a burst of movement fast enough to match a bullet, piercing the Undercity Guardian in the chest. He slashed to the side, and the beast was cut in two, roaring in alarm. He made a few more effortlessly slight movements, slicing the top half of the beast into smaller pieces, and then move his black blade in a horizontal swiping motion, towards the two Forsaken summons.

Naruto clasped his hands, and they were dispelled in a burst of smoke before Sasuke could hit them. Naruto made a few seals, then, and sucked in a huge breath, exhaling a massive blast of fire, enough to engulf a small cottage.

'_Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu'_

The blast was cut in two, almost immediately, by Sasuke's lengthy black blade, but Naruto hadn't intended such a bulky attack to connect. Instead, he flashed to the side, ignoring the growing pain in his side, moving faster than the eye could see, even if that eye was the_Sharingan_.

Sasuke saw it, just barely, and moved, but Naruto's attack connected anyways.

'_Katon; Kaenhira'_

Naruto's open palm struck Sasuke in the side, creating a bang like a gunshot and a brilliant white flash. Sasuke was blasted into the fog, which had continued its dreadful course the entire fight.

They had neared the beach.

"You fucking idiot," Naruto raged, backing steadily away again. "You stupid, stupid bastard! How could you do that? I thought…" Naruto's anger shortly vanished. It was replaced by a sort of lost, longing emptiness, the kind you get when remembering a long dead friend or relative, very close to you. He was right in front of Naruto, but he still seemed so far away.

The blast had been powerful, but not strong enough to kill, or even seriously injure Sasuke, that much Naruto knew. Indeed, Sasuke was standing almost a second later, even as smoke continued to steadily rise from the scorched area of skin. Sasuke's eyes registered no pain, but they had clouded somewhat, further increasing the metaphysical gap between them.

"Aren't you going to fight me properly?" Naruto snarled. "Bastard?"

* * *

Done! 

Finally!

Sorry that took a little longer than I said it would. But you deserve more of an explanation for why I'm so late in general, so here's what happened between the last two chapters.

I got a girlfriend, and then broke up with her. I was loaded down with essays, labs, and tons of reading that comes with University life. I had a birthday. I've been writing for a short story contest, which took up my free writing time.

That's the gist. I don't want to bore you, as this isn't a Livejournal blog where I can rant my heart out, but in any case, now you know why I was so late with the last update. I am very sorry, and I don't hope to make that mistake again, though I can't guarantee it.

That said, I would like to thank you all for the good reviews for the previous chapter, they were very helpful. Please keep it up, everyone!

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and I hope to see you very soon again. I will work on the chapter as often as I can, so as not to keep you all in suspense.

See you all later!

General Grievous

* * *

_**Scroll of Seals**_

_**Katon: Kaenhira**_

_**Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu**_

_**Kongou**_

_**Kazaashi**_

_**Chidori Katana (One Thousand Birds Katana): **_Creates a sword of electric _chakra_.

_**Chidori Nagashi (One Thousand Birds Current): **_Creates a current of electric _chakra_, can travel through weapons and even the air itself, if necessary.

_**Kuchiyose no jutsu: Forsaken (Summoning Technique: Forsaken): **_Summons the fallen minions of Sylvanas, who can perform the techniques they did in life, making them far deadlier than the Scourge summons of the Lich King.

_**Kuchiyose: Scourge: **_Summons Scourge, mostly mindless ghouls and zombies, but also the Undead Plague itself accompanies this summon.

_**Kuchiyose: Abomination/Undercity Guardian**_

_**Shugohakke Rokujyon Sho (Protection of the Eight Trigrams): **_Releases up to thousands of energy blades.

_**Gleaming Light**_Releases spears of golden light that fly at an incredibly quick rate.

_**Jashin Curse of Immortality: **_Unknown cause, gives user immortality.

_**Bingo Book:**_

**Hidan (Missing-Nin: Graveyard)(Boss)(S-Class)**: Data unknown.

**Kakuzu (Missing-Nin: Waterfall)(Boss)(S-Class): **Data unknown.

**Uchiha Sasuke (Undead)(Boss)**

**Jugo (Humanoid/Undead)(Boss)**

**Karen (Humanoid/Undead)(Boss)**

**Suigetsu (Humanoid/Undead/Elemental)(Boss)**


	27. Youth's End

_Disclaimer: There is no humor in death._

_I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Sasuke said nothing. 

"You can't," Naruto snapped, half-mocking and half-pained. "You can't can you? You're not the same Sasuke at all. That Sasuke could beat me. _You_ can't, even if you're finally trying to kill me."

Something was changing in Sasuke's demeanor. The coldness seemed to dissipate, if only slightly, like ice thinning on a frozen pond. Naruto could see past it, almost, and his anger and mocking faded away, just as quickly as Sasuke attacked.

Naruto's sword took the blow, but it was much stronger than before, and done with far more ferocity. Sasuke was attacking, but not with the cold passiveness of before. Further evidence for this were the ghouls and Scourge behind him—before they had remained in the fog, perhaps guiding it, or perhaps just waiting for their master to finish his battle. Now they weren't, and were descending from the green mist in scores, heading straight for Naruto.

Sasuke's_ Sharingan_ turned slowly, and seemed to flash with something that was not light reflecting off ice, but something deeper. Naruto continued to block, redirecting Sasuke's quick and precise attacks away from his torso, even as they nicked and cut his arms and shoulders. He had backed up to the wharf now, and there was just a stretch of wooden planks between him and the rolling sea. It began to rain.

"You're not Sasuke," Naruto said, dancing away from another of Sasuke's attacks, and riposting as quickly as a wasp stinging. His sword bit briefly into Sasuke's shoulder, but it didn't do anything except allow Sasuke to get another cut on Naruto, straight across his chest. A burst of anger flared Naruto's next attack—he slammed his whole weight into Sasuke, knocking him back, and then punched him with the hilt of his sword, again and again, until Sasuke pulled away and made a few seals.

'_Kyouton: Numbing Ice'_

Sasuke's hand flew out, and a pulse of cold air washed over Naruto, freezing his limbs in place, as if the joints had become encrusted with ice. Unable to move, or even speak, he struggled as Sasuke moved swiftly forwards, not relishing the attack as he would have before, but with merely ice-cold precision. The swarm of undead stopped, and waited once more, as Sasuke's apparent anger dissipated.

A vision flashed before Naruto's eyes.

For a second it was not Sasuke attacking him, but the man with the cold, controlled demeanor, whom Sasuke had been set on destroying from the very moment Naruto had met him.

Itachi.

Still holding his weapon, somehow, Naruto managed to move. His sword flung forwards, catching Sasuke's mid-strike. Heat burst into being inside Naruto, filling him with uncomfortable warmth, even in the bitterly cold rain. He was suddenly so mobile that it took him a moment to register it, which allowed Sasuke to back away.

Naruto stared at him, not attacking, eyes wide.

"You're him," he said aloud.

Sasuke didn't answer. He didn't even seem to be listening. His gaze had shut off again, the glinting light beneath the frozen pools gone.

"You're Itachi," Naruto said.

That seemed to do something. The light returned, and Sasuke's face registered a mute surprise, before snapping back to the emotionless sheet it had been before.

"I'm not Itachi," said Sasuke, calmly.

"Yes, you are!" Naruto snarled, building steam, rage coursing through him. "You are, you stupid bastard! You're Itachi! You're acting exactly like him, not caring what you're doing, just doing it because you were told to or because you fucking _can_! I can't believe it, Sasuke what the hell are you—"

Sasuke attacked. Naruto blocked, and shoved the undead boy away, dashing straight up to him and head-butting him in the nose. The blow threw Sasuke off-kilter, and shattered his nose with a brittle crack, though no blood flowed. It allowed Naruto to summon clones, which grabbed Sasuke by both his arms and kicked him in the stomach, before hurtling him back, off the pier, and into the now turbulent sea. Naruto followed, leaping onto the unstable waves, his _chakra_ calming the water around him, allowing him to stand steadily upon it.

Sasuke was out a second later, upon the sea as well. The water was freezing against his skin, becoming a thin later of ice, which Sasuke easily shook off.

"I am not Itachi," he said again, even though Naruto could barely hear him.

"Prove it," Naruto said.

Sasuke's demeanor had changed again; it was hotter, fiercer than before. His mask was crumbling, melting like that of an ice-sculpture. His face twitched and he attacked again, with silent rage flooding every movement he took. Naruto could see it, feel it, and it gave him such a surge of hope that he nearly perished with Sasuke's next strike. He just barely ducked in time, and scampered away, glancing back at the pier, now flooded with ghouls, moaning and snarling in the wind, waiting for Naruto to return to them.

"You're not Sasuke!" Naruto taunted again, roaring louder than the Scourge behind him.

"Shut up," Sasuke said. "Shut up!"

"THEN YOU FUCKING LISTEN!" Naruto shouted himself hoarse. "STOP BEING A FUCKING RIP-OFF OF YOUR GODDAMN BROTHER, YOU FUCKING MORON! YOU'RE KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE!"

Naruto wasn't sure what it was; perhaps it was simply the final straw of comparing him to his brother; perhaps it was the mentioning of the word 'innocent', or perhaps it was even the way Naruto shouted it, so full of anguish, anger, and fear, and peppered with the fiercest swear words Naruto knew. Whatever it was, it worked.

Sasuke's cold eyes broke. His face, still ice, had fractured into a hundred pieces, like a lake dispersing at the beginning of spring. Where there was once emotion sealed beneath a dozen layers of cold apathy, there were now so many that Naruto couldn't identify them all at once. The effect, however, was frightening to behold. Sasuke looked like he was about to have a heart attack, as if he was experiencing his last moments on earth.

But from his view, it was radically different.

There was so much blood.

That was all he could see. The sea, once a dark, bottomless blue, almost black, was now as crimson as if the earth itself was bleeding, so dark and rich and thick that looking at it move was as sickening as realizing he was stepping in it, surrounded by it, drowning in it. Memories—now laden with emotion, no longer so distant, flooded back. Stepping into his room, stepping into a pool of his mother's blood. Seeing the streets painted by it; his relatives face down in lakes of it; his brother, with his malevolent eyes, drenched in it.

Like he was.

It was all over him. It rained atop him from the crimson skies, thick, black drops of blood half-coagulated, splattering across his face as thick as cream. It drenched his clothes, and beneath. He saw it along his bare, pale arms and coating his shaking hands, painting each fingernail like a ghastly nail polish and collected beneath them in dark bunches that were almost dry. He could feel it running down his scalp, down his face, over his eyes. He could smell it so strongly that his dead body forcibly recalled one of its human actions, and he gagged. He could taste it on his lips and in his mouth. He could even hear it, dripping past his ear, resonating along the ear canal deeply muffled and distant, because even his ears were plugged with it.

He choked, and nearly lost his grip on the sea below him. It was only for fear of drowning in the violent sanguine sea that kept him up, backing constantly away. He hardly noticed Naruto until now, but when he did, he felt a plethora of things—relief, gladness, hatred, fear, pity, disgust, and more, and he didn't look for long, because somebody was grabbing him, hauling him back, shouting at him.

"Sasuke-kun!"

Karin pulled Sasuke up and back onto the pier. The ghouls parted for them, as she pulled him back and hugged him.

"Sasuke-kun," she said, "we must leave. You can't—!"

Sasuke didn't answer her. The blood was gone. It was fading, like a fog, until the only thing he could see that was red in the darkness before him was Naruto's _chakra_, emanating from his stomach and slowly pulsing outwards. It was like fire, but more controlled. He had seen it before.

He met Naruto's eyes again. Naruto was grim-faced, but his eyes showed a far greater range of emotions, all of which Sasuke understood but could not think to name at that time. Naruto didn't look away once, and the grim-faced look softened somewhat, becoming something more like despair.

Sasuke nodded. "We'll go."

Karin seemed relieved. She glanced at Naruto, who didn't move.

"Fall back!" she cried. Supporting Sasuke, she led the ghouls back.

Growling, Naruto started to follow. He wouldn't let them get away. Not when Sasuke was so close, not when he could fulfill his promise to Sakura-chan right now, and get his moronic brother back at the same time! Even the Plague-fog, which had fully engulfed the town now, but was not creeping past the edge of the pier, wouldn't get in his way. He wiped some of the blood off one of his many wounds, which were only beginning to heal, and performed a few quick hand seals.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu'_

Two creatures burst into existence, erupting from the smokescreen and onto the dock. They were brutally large dogs with rotten, leprous flesh and covered in a dark fur that appeared green with rot. Around them a thin sheen of greenish smoke hovered, a visible odor of their decay, and black saliva dripped from their mouths, as they waited for Naruto's orders. Unlike the others, these would not respond verbally, and could hardly disobey. They were Plaguehounds, though they were far different from the garden-variety hound seduced by the undead Plague.

This became clear as they moved forwards at Naruto's call, hovering just out of reach of the retreating horde of ghouls. The greenish fog of Plague engulfing the city began to clear around them. They heaved in deep breaths, devouring the Plague fog as they moved like whirlpools devouring water. Naruto followed them quickly, leaping onto the pier, moving with them as he directed them towards Sasuke and Karin, whom he could just see within the ghoulish mass. He grit his teeth.

"Sasuke!" he roared.

He suddenly stopped. A voice raged at once in his mind, and a new set of emotions came with it—desperation, anger, killing intent—all unconnected with his own.

'_**Naruto!'**_

"Tsuwabuki?"

'_**Get back here! We've been attacked! It's Akatsuki! The ones who killed Magni! Kira and everyone need you guys back here now!'**_

Horror flashed through Naruto's being, and for a moment he forgot about Sasuke. But when he remembered, he swore so fiercely in his mind that he could feel Tsuwabuki recoil from his anger. He didn't comment on them—she would know, anyways—and stared in the direction of Sasuke and his retreating army, now barely visible in the gloom and rain ahead of him, a real fog now setting in. But even though he was so far away, Sasuke was visible, clearly, amidst the rest, and Naruto could only stare at him awhile, as he retreated, and soon vanished.

Sasuke stared back.

Damn him, Naruto thought, fury boiling him alive. He turned and flashed towards the beach, moving with all the speed his injured body could manage. The pain in his legs, chest and arms and all the stinging cuts Sasuke had given him didn't slow him down, nor did the sight that greeted him at the beach, the bloodstained sand and the dozens of bodies strewn across it in stinky, festering piles of blood and organs and bones. The Scourge here were retreating as well, and Naruto quickly found Sakura and Kakashi. Kakashi was gathering the surviving villagers together, and Sakura stood alone, shaking, though Naruto wouldn't remember that until after everything was over.

"We gotta go back, now!" Naruto shouted, as he skidded to a halt between them.

Kakashi turned. "What is it?"

"Kira-chan! She's being attacked by Akatsuki! We have to go now!"

Sakura broke away from her shocked state, and walked forwards while her body stopped trembling. "W-what?"

Kakashi cast one look at the villagers. "I'll stay. You two go. We have no other choice nor do we have any chance for argument."

Naruto didn't disagree, and Sakura was too shocked to. Naruto grabbed her by the arm, and fished the hearthstone from his pocket. He then stared straight into her eyes, his voice commanding, confident and everything that Sakura needed to hear in that moment.

"We'll get that bastard back, Sakura-chan. I promise." His eyes, impossibly blue, were so clear.

Sakura's fear and despair fled like shadows from light. She gave him a brief, grateful smile, though she silently cursed him for being so embarrassingly perceptive only when he wanted to be. The doubt was gone, because she could hear none of it in his voice. He would still keep his promise.

Sasuke wasn't gone yet.

They vanished a moment later, in a swirling blue light and a puff of smoke.

* * *

Nefarian and Ragnaros battled like gods. 

Each attack they made was visible throughout the entire battlefield, now clear of dust and dirt, and heard even farther. They echoed like explosions and created bright flashes of blinding, fiery light like bombs going off, enough for a war all their own.

Ragnaros struck with its monstrous hammer, Sulfuras, and each swing, like a sunspot arcing on the sun's surface, created a wind that tore up the earth around it, scattering his enemies and allies alike across the battlefield and roasting the flesh, if they had it, from their bones and scattering them into the raging winds. No matter how fast they moved, Shikamaru and his group could not escape some effect from the battle—whether the raging tremors each blow brought, the scorching winds, the ear-splitting sounds and blinding lights, each made it harder and harder to progress through the still raging battle to find their friends and leave. They needed Ino—that was their only chance. They had no other alternative other than relying on her abilities to get them out, and without her, they would be doomed for sure.

Shikamaru clutched tightly to Thauraan's ratty, torn shirt and pulled ungracefully along, with Asuma to his side and Undrig and Tenten behind him. Undrig continually shouted words that were often lost in the raging tumult, but what Shikamaru got from them was to stay as far away from the Fire Lord as possible, and to not look at him directly. Shikamaru had already discovered that the creature's body was so bright that looking at it made his eyes dry and his vision swim. The power, too, was beyond anything he had ever felt. His senses were swamped with the monstrous _chakra_ that the Fire Lord and his enemy gave out, and even though Shikamaru forced down every impulse he had, he could not keep himself from trembling in terror. It took all he had not to freeze on the spot, overwhelmed by power.

We shouldn't be here, Shikamaru continually thought. We shouldn't be forced into this situation, in this place, this isn't meant for us, it can't be. We're not gods, so why the hell are we here?

Find Ino, another part of him said. Don't think of anything else. Just find her and get out. She'll be fine, and then you'll be fine. Just go. Go. GO!

The clear battlefield did nothing to help the situation. There was simply too much going on, too many battles, roars of victory, cries of death and continual crashing of bodies to earth, so that it was just as difficult to find any trace of their allies among the raging fire elementals and shimmering black dragons as before. Shikamaru did not have time to grow frustrated, weaving and dodging his way through the battling monsters. But if they didn't find them fast, then something, anything, could happen and in this situation it would be anything but good.

It arrived a minute later. Shikamaru saw it and skidded to a halt, throwing himself back so that he slammed into Tenten and Undrig with a grunt from both, and nearly fell over. Before they could react, they saw it too.

In front of them was a dragonspawn bigger than the rest, as large as one of the black drakes and looking even deadlier, covered in plated, black armor and covered in spines, and devouring the remainders of a large fire elemental as if the flames were a tasty snack. It greedily licked the fire from its mouth, and belched a plume of it into the air, and then it saw Shikamaru and it grinned.

"**More humans?"** it said. **"How lucky."**

They scrambled back as the beast moved forwards. Shikamaru grit his teeth, shoved Thauraan back, and made a seal. He was lucky the hole had essentially cast the entire battlefield in shadows. They leapt from the floor, slightly transparent black tendrils, and fastened themselves around the dragonspawn's waste and attempted to pierce its draconic scales, to no effect. The dragonspawn cocked its reptilian head and glared at the impediment. It laughed.

"**You think this will stop Razorgore the Untamed?**"

Shikamaru coughed, but didn't answer. He waited as Asuma moved in a circle around the beast to its side, holding both of his trench knives, each glowing with sky blue _chakra_ extending a few feet from them. He moved unseen for a moment, but when he neared the dragonspawn, it abruptly turned, snapping its way out of Shikamaru's attack as if they were stubborn vines, and whipped its spiked tail at Asuma's head. This was a mistake—his trench knives sliced through the scales and spines like butter, severing the end of the dragonspawn's tail. Razorgore bellowed and roared, and beat its huge wings, taking to the air. Once there, it raised its claws.

And to Shikamaru's utter astonishment, it made a seal.

'_Conflagration'_

It dropped, engulfed in fire, to the ground, which exploded in a jarring blast of heat and sound that threw Shikamaru backwards, knocking him into Thauraan, huddled behind him. Asuma just barely managed to dodge instant incineration, but the fiery shockwave scorched his arms and face, and his cry was engulfed in the noise of the fighting.

Razorgore, now in the center of a crater of melted rock and debris, began to laugh; it was an unnerving sound, coming from something so like a wild beast.

Asuma, stumbling in pain, circled the beast again, towards Shikamaru, who was recovering from the attack with Tenten and Undrig's help. He barely registered the others, his vision swimming and his ears pounding, but they stood beside him, one with a face of grim, resigned determination, a face ready to meet death, and another trying to imitate it but failing to block the fear that showed through. Thauraan was there too, by Shikamaru's side, looking lost and desperate and clutching the shinobi like a child would his mother or father.

Even in that situation, Shikamaru had to smile, even a little. He squeezed the dwarfling's shoulder.

"Get back," he said, calmly, as he stood. "Behind us."

Thauraan quickly obeyed.

Tenten opted for a large shuriken, drawing it from one of her many scrolls, and Undrig hefted his hammer with a grunt. The heat and exhaustion were getting to him as well. Shikamaru ran through a dozen plans in his mind and scrapped each on of them as Razorgore moved in for another attack. He decided, for once in his short life, to try something spontaneous.

It worked for Naruto, after all.

He slammed his hands together, and roared for everyone to move back. They scattered, as Razorgore bore down on Shikamaru, leering and roaring like a man but so huge and terrifying that no man could match it. It slammed its claws together, hoping to pop Shikamaru's head with a wet, gushing sound, but heard nothing but the cracking of rock, audible even in the roar of battle to its sensitive ears. There was also another sound, which Razorgore noticed the source of just as it opened its hands, revealing crushed bits of rock and an explosive note, attached to the center of its palm. Powerful as it was, but not nearly so smart, it did not register the attack until it had already gone off.

The note burst with an abrupt flash, engulfing the dragonspawn's arm in flames and making it snarl in pain and fury. Shikamaru called to regroup, and though he wanted to flee, there was no option to. They had to kill this thing or it would kill one of them. He called to Asuma.

"Behind it!"

Asuma was already moving. He directed Tenten, who shook at his words but obeyed, and Undrig, who had already gotten the gist of the plan and was almost in position. Shikamaru made a few hand seals, and then nodded.

'_Kage Kubi Shibari No Jutsu'_

Arms of shadow crept up the dragonspawn's legs, some holding them fast, other traveling up, invisible, along the beast's black body towards its neck and head. In that same moment, Tenten moved forwards, launching her shuriken into the dragonspawn's side, and then followed it with a dozen more. Undrig flew beneath Razorgore, ramming his hammer with increasing force in the creature's underbelly, his battle cries getting ever more ferocious as he did. Asuma was the quickest, leaping a top Razorgore's back and swinging his trench knives at the dragonspawn's wings.

But even as all of this happened, Razorgore was moving, slashing, clawing and snarling, throwing itself back and forth, tearing through Shikamaru's shadows and using its tail to knock Asuma off before the knives could sever its wings, and kicking Undrig from out beneath him, and shrugging off Tenten's kunai and shuriken embedded in his side, and moving forwards towards Shikamaru with eyes like maelstroms of flame. As if holes had been punctured in the veil of hell itself, they shined with a deep, horrible fire that brought no illumination, yet still cast a terribly black shadow that seemed old as time. It was deep, deep as the core of the earth, and Shikamaru was unable to find his way out of it, just as he couldn't find his way out of this goddamned hole in the middle of the earth. The eyes were like a beast's but deeper, like a man's, but so full of unnatural hate that it seemed no living creature could match it. Shikamaru stood stock still, even as Razorgore moved towards him, roaring as he came. Its deep eyes held Shikamaru fast and he could do nothing but stare, lost in the absolute fear and deaf to the cries of his friends, focusing solely on those hateful, flaming, _demonic _eyes.

Then all of that vanished.

The creature, just feet away from crushing Shikamaru, stopped, and stood still. Shikamaru still fixated on its eyes. They were different, familiar, even.

"Ino?"

"**Shikamaru?"**

Shikamaru turned. Coming towards them, now in the area cleared by Razorgore's presence, he saw Gai, with the others behind him. Chouji cradled Ino's body in his arms, while Lee was supporting Neji, whose eyes were closed and he appeared to be in immense pain.

Shikamaru turned back to Razorgore. "You did it."

"**I did it!" **Ino cried—a disturbing effect, with the dragonspawn's crackling, bottomless voice.

"Couldn't have chosen something bigger?" Chouji said, as they neared. He grinned with relief at Shikamaru, who smiled back before turning and seeking out Thauraan. The dwarfling was right behind him, shivering in fear.

"**As big as you, you mean,"** said Ino, attempting to smirk, Shikamaru guessed, but the effect was morel like a snarl on the draconic face.

"Neji!" Tenten said, rushing to the boy. "What's wrong?"

Neji ignored her, but Lee said, "He had his _Byakugan_ activated when Ragnaros appeared. He can't see much, and he's in a lot of pain. Ino-san couldn't do much for him now."

"Which means we've lost one of our big advantages," Shikamaru said, calmly.

Neji merely nodded, his face too pained to show the slight sliver of anger at Shikamaru's words.

"Will he be okay?" Tenten gasped, clutching at the boy.

"**Too early to tell,**" said Ino, from beside. "**I'd say so, but we have to get him out of here quickly and to some proper care before we can decide anything.**"

Tenten swallowed, and looked at Neji, but the boy was silent and didn't return the comforting squeeze she gave him, nor did he even glance in her direction.

"Enough talk," Asuma growled, as they gathered. "Let's move. Everyone on Ino."

Though small in comparison to the other dragons, Razorgore was yet large enough to hold them, once Asuma had removed the spikes with his knives. Ino felt no pain from them—they were like fingernails, she said.

"How long do you have in there, Ino?" Shikamaru asked.

"**I don't know. Long enough to get out of here. It can't fight back as easily as I thought it could."**

They were truly more like humans, then, than Shikamaru had given them credit. What he had seen in Razorgore's eyes had shown him something deep within the creature that could not have been born on this earth. He had no idea how he knew that, but he was certain of it, more certain than he'd been of anything else. But whatever that was, it had weakened the beast's own mind enough for Ino to push through it. As strong as they were in body, their minds were even worse than those of a human. But it still made him uneasy; there was something wrong with them, and whatever it was, it lay in their thoughts and souls, not their bodies.

"Get out as fast as possible," he said. "I don't want you in there too long."

"**Why?"**

"Just believe me. Let's go!"

Ino spread her wings, and tested them with a few beats, before nodding to herself. She then beat the wings in a single great sweep, and leapt into the air, flapping them harder and harder with each second. She rose quickly into the air above the raging tumult, which showed no signs of letting up and seemed to be getting worse with each moment.

Moments into their flight, Ragnaros' voice bellowed through the air, louder than the war.

'**THE…FIRE…IS…MINE!'**

The walls around the battlefield began to move, almost like liquid. Great sprays of hot gas and pressurized streams of molten rock suddenly exploded through, creating a deadly rain over the fighters closest to the walls, causing neither harm, until the pooling molten rock rose up, taking the vague shapes of men. They blazed and leapt through the battle like sparks, there one moment and gone the next, appearing beside the rubble of the golems, and then bursting into puddles again. The rocks, saturated in their bodies, began to shift and amalgamate, reforming into the crude forms they had once had before Nefarian's brood had slain them. All across the field the golems rose anew, ready to battle the still numberless swarm of black dragons and their kin that swept across the area like locusts.

The shinobi rose high above the battle, above even the dragons themselves, which faced no flying beasts themselves, and so stayed low. Above them the ruined sky of the Steppes loomed, but it seemed so much more welcome than before. The air became breathable and the wind was so refreshing that Shikamaru couldn't resist a whoop of joy, which the others joined in as they rose.

We're going to do it, Shikamaru thought, half-mad with desperation and euphoria. We're almost there!

"Ino!" Gai suddenly shouted, above the roaring wind. "Behind you!"

Ino swerved, and a black shape swept by, clipping her side with a silvery claw. She screamed, barely managing to hold her grip on her host. She caught a glimpse of it just before it swept by again, aiming at her side, roaring in fury.

"**TRAITOR! TRAITOR!**"

The dragon could have been the twin of the one Gai had slain earlier. It was just as big and its scales where the same streamlined mixture of fiery orange and dread black, and its voice roared as loudly, but with far more fury, than the last. It aimed straight for Ino's side, its claws brandished before it, roaring as Ino tried to turn.

She managed. The beast slammed into her front, and she grappled with it for a moment, her claws entangled in its, before pushing it off and flying upwards, while the dragon dove down. It immediately twirled and shot up, however, while Ino struggled to see it, and orient herself to take the next attack. But Shikamaru realized that the longer they stayed here, the more likely it would be that Ino would soon be rejected by the dragonspawn's body, and he knew that they couldn't linger long enough to fight.

"Just dodge!" he shouted at Ino.

"When?" Ino cried desperately, flapping her wings and floating backwards, unable to look down far enough to see the oncoming dragon.

Shikamaru craned his neck. The dragon was suddenly there.

"NOW!"

Ino swerved to the side, but the dragon connected anyways. A deadly claw raked up Ino's side, cutting through scales and flesh and making Ino scream in the dragonspawn's voice, and nearly fall. But Shikamaru was shouting at her to stay up, stay awake, and be ready. It was coming again. The dragon had already swooped around towards Ino's back, and but on a burst of speed, roaring madly.

"Don't turn, Ino! Just stay still!"

"What?"

"STAY STILL!"

Ino continued to beat her wings, hovering in place, desperate and afraid of the oncoming danger that her enhanced ears could hear behind her, beating violently and getting louder and louder and—

She roared. Shikamaru hissed to Undrig, "Now!"

A shimmering golden dome appeared around Ino's host, like a cloud made of sunbeams, dousing everyone within with a deep sense of warmth and safety. The dragon struck it not a moment later, hitting the dome with enough force to shatter a wall of stone, but the light didn't give way. The creature hit it with a sickening crack, twisted, and spiraled down into the chaos beneath. It crashed onto a group of dragonspawn and flamewakers, crushing them in a hideous crunch of bones and scales and the wet splash of spilt blood. The dragon wailed, and attempted to stand, but its wings had been mangled by the fall. Its hideous roars joined the sounds of battle, and was soon lost among them, as Ino took everyone higher into the sky.

"Good job!" Shikamaru said, nearly laughing in joy.

"Well done, Ino-chan!" Gai bellowed, thrusting a fist into the air. "Excellent!"

Desperation and exhaustion mixed with a growing sense of joy, as Ino rose. They were about to do it—about to get out of this place and leave it for good, and everyone was alive; nothing could stop them now! The others, shaking with fear and hope, fixed their eyes skywards, holding fast to the beautiful sight of the heavens, even if they were filled with soot and clouds of dust from the opening of the battlegrounds and the evil blackness that had always pervaded them since Ragnaros' rebirth three hundred years prior. It didn't matter. The wind, though hot and dry, was still filled with a life that the underground had not had, a natural life, rather than the unnatural life that had invaded the world with Ragnaros and his golems and elementals, whose presence had seeped into every nook and crevasse of the Fire Lord's underground world. They could breath great gusts of the hot air, and though it still burned their lungs and made them cough, they didn't care.

They passed the rim of the hole, and suddenly everything below them seemed a dream. They were above it, away from it, they never had to deal with it—

"INO!"

Ino swerved. A great black shape rose above them before her, and she nearly crashed into it, but she stopped and flew back, the force of the stop and sudden reversal making everyone atop her crash together in a painful assortment of limbs and sudden confusion. Only Gai, who had shouted the warning, had seen it coming and could see it now, far clearer than the others.

The dragon before them was without a doubt the leader of them all. It was far larger than the others, far more impressive—blacker than the depths of space, its 'plumage' an even brighter orange like flames solidified; wings as long as the dragonspawn they rode; claws plated in a steely metal and spines growing as long as half a man from its back and along its arms; and eyes like the glowing core of the earth, as bright as Ragnaros yet so terribly black and unnatural that what Shikamaru had seen in Razorgore paled in comparison to the horrifying unnaturalness that was present in Nefarian's eyes.

'_**Taking One Of My Generals, Girl?**_' the word girl was jarring to Ino, and she felt a sudden helplessness invade her, making her shrink back within the bowels of the dragonspawn's mind like a frightened child.

'_**To Think,'**_Nefarian said, or thought, for his mouth never moved the entire time he spoke, '_**That One Of My Selected Generals Is So Weak…'**_ Then the ponderous tone was gone, and hot anger was there; it was beyond frightful, beyond any terror that they had ever felt. Even Neji felt it, blind as he was: an inky, ancient fury that swallowed and suffocated like tar but burnt as hot as magma. Ino nearly lost her grip again, and desperately flew down, away from Nefarian, who hovered in the same position.

'_**Stop, Humans. You Have Taken Three Of My Generals. I Won't Let It COST ME MY WAR! STOP!'**_

The shout rang out and Ino suddenly couldn't move. She tried to beat her wings, but couldn't, and so she fell back, plummeting towards the ground, her passengers gripping as best they could to her with _chakra_ but it was so difficult that Neji and Chouji nearly fell off, distracted by their injuries and trying to hold on to Ino's limp body.

Ino fell down, and turning his head, Shikamaru could see something horrible beneath him.

Ragnaros was moving. The Fire Lord was almost below them now, its movement leaving a trail of destruction in its wake; the rock became magma as it passed over it, and everything that neared it burst into flame and became nothing more than ash by the time it had swept by them. It held its hammer aloft, and was gazing skywards, straight at them, its eyes filled with the pure consuming wrath of a wildfire.

'_**COME…TO…ME.**_'

Shikamaru was shouting at Ino to pull up, to free herself, and was at the same time releasing pulses of _chakra_ to help her, but it was doing nothing and she kept trying to say so, but she couldn't because even her mouth was frozen shut.

Nefarian flew after them. He was so frighteningly quick that in only two flaps, he was beside the plummeting shinobi, his smoldering eyes the only thing visible apart from a black blur.

'_**Now, Di—'**_

Before he could finish, Gai struck him the chest.

The Azure Beast of Konoha's movement went unseen by everyone. He had released his grip on Ino, and conjured a shadow clone in the same instant, dropping onto it, and then rocketing off its back, out from under Ino in an unbelievable feat of speed, and straight at Nefarian. He struck the beast in the chin, and normally, that wouldn't have done much, but Gai had not stopped there.

'_Hachimon: Keimon'_

An explosion of _chakra_ blasted Ino away from Nefarian and at the same moment returned her ability to move. She righted herself and spread her wings to catch the air, stopping in a moment and then flying up and back, but by then it had already ended.

'_Asa Kujaku'_

Plumes of flame seemed to erupt from Gai's glowing, fiery body, but they were in fact his fists moving with such speed and ferocity that they appeared everywhere at once and had become covered in a glowing, white-hot flame. They slammed into Nefarian's body, which had halted its flight and was thrown onto its back, and continued to strike him even as he fell. Gai's face never left his target, save once. He looked up, just before he passed out of sight, to stare up at them.

But they couldn't see his face, before it was gone.

"GAI-SENSEI!" Lee was screaming. "GAI-SENSEI! NO! GAI-SENSEI!"

"GO BACK!" screamed Tenten, pounding on Ino's borrowed body, tearful and horrified and unable to keep her eyes off Nefarian, now a speck below them. "Go back, please, please!"

"What's happening?" Neji said, but his voice was almost lost amidst the shouting. "What is…?"

"Ino, go back!" Chouji bellowed, staring desperately down.

"Gai-sensei!" Shikamaru roared. "Ino…!"

"**I KNOW!" **Ino shouted, "**But I—"**

"You can't!" snarled Asuma. "Ino! You can't go back!"

Lee looked back at Asuma, two people behind him, and looked as if he wanted to strangle the man. "WHAT?"

"You go back and we're all dead!" Asuma growled. "We can't go back now! Ino's about at her limit!"

"WE HAVE TO!" Lee shouted. "WE HAVE TO GO BACK FOR GAI-SENSEI!" He wasn't losing Gai-sensei, he couldn't lose him, _please_ not him!

"THINK ABOUT IT!" Asuma gripped Shikamaru's cloaked shoulder. "Shikamaru!"

Shikamaru, gripping Thauraan so tightly that it should've been painful, though neither he nor the boy noticed, looked desperately around as if he didn't know where Asuma was calling from, and when he focused, he gave the man a look of utter confusion.

"W-what, h-how do w-we…?"

"Make a decision!" Asuma bellowed from behind.

"B-but…" He looked at Undrig, perhaps for guidance, perhaps simply because the dwarf was there in front of him, but the dwarf offered none, because it wasn't his place to.

"SHIKAMARU!" Lee cried. "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!"

Asuma tightened his grip. "NOW!" he snarled.

"W-we…" Shikamaru knew it. He knew it with everything he had but he didn't want to acknowledge it. It was not the first time his heart and his mind had disagreed but he knew that in this case there was only one thing he could do and he hated himself for it, for even thinking it, but knew that it had to be done and so even as he spoke it, he felt tears slip from his eyes, and he barely managed it, barely managed to even utter the words.

"Up," he said. "Ino, get us out of here."

"NO!" Lee roared, attempting to turn and push past Undrig to get at Shikamaru, his eyes mad with despair and fury. "TAKE THAT BACK!" He fought, but the dwarf held him fast.

But Shikamaru didn't answer, even to defend himself. He closed his eyes, a feeling of loss and nausea sweeping over him like a raging flood as they rose up into the air. He vomited what little he had out, shaking like a distraught child. Lee was still screaming, but the anger was bleeding from him, and soon he was only in tears; Tenten was weeping and clutching Neji, who was silent as death; Asuma was silent too, though Shikamaru couldn't see what his face looked like; Chouji was shaking, whether from rage or despair it was hard to tell, and he clutched Ino's body a little bit tighter to himself; Undrig sat in solid neutrality, but kept his face turned from Shikamaru; Thauraan shook in Shikamaru's lap, holding his shrunken arms to himself.

The dwarfling was sobbing.

As they rose, once again far above the battle, and now away from it, Shikamaru felt nothing. His words had carved it out, and his sick had dropped what was left back into the earth, so he said nothing, and felt nothing.

---------------------------

It was so hot.

It was all Gai could think about for a moment, pulling himself to his feet with all the grace of a drunken sailor after a bad fight; his arms were so badly torn up by his attack that they hung uselessly at his side, though they didn't even hurt. Human flesh wasn't meant to stand against dragon scales. The _Keimon_ had also taken its toll on the rest of his body, which sagged as if weighed down by rock. But he had enough strength to stand, and he knew there was yet more he could exhaust, before it was all over.

It grew hotter, and louder. A sound—a tornado made of roaring flames—grew closer and closer as the heat rose, and it grew brighter as well, as if he was standing next to the rising sun as it peeked over the mountaintops in the morning. He did not look towards it, instead keeping his tired, wounded eyes on the crater before him, where Nefarian lay, struggling to get up. The black dragon was beginning to right himself, and he was gagging and snarling, and shaking his head, dislodging a small snowfall of scales from his neck and upper chest, though it was hardly enough to cause damage. Orange and black eyes fixed themselves on Gai, and had he been any other man, he would have pissed himself.

Instead, he found himself quite jovial, because he knew he had done it. There was no way he'd be able to survive this, to preserve what little youth he had left, but he didn't care because it was all done. He had done what he had set out to do, taught what he'd needed to teach, and seen all that he had wanted to see, in some respects. Of course, he knew there were many other things he wouldn't see. He would not see Kakashi finally one-up him in their longstanding rivalry; nor would he see Asuma and Kurenai's child born into the world; nor joke with Naruto-kun or offer him advice (for he knew the boy would need it); nor would he eat beef hotpot or ramen; nor would he and Lee train in the dense forests of Konoha, alone or with Neji and Tenten, or share more his past with them, or impart his wisdom to them and listen to Lee vocally memorize every scrap of it, while Neji and Tenten just rolled their eyes with slight smiles on their faces, or join Lee for laps around the village on just their hands, blindfolded, like that one time after they had both failed to complete their daily routine of two thousand push-ups and crunches and pull-ups and log-punches, kicks and headbutts, and finally ending with a two hour sparring session that both had not even moved for, much less fought, though they had both laughed so much afterwards before they had begun the punishment training for failing; nor would he watch them all grow up and make families and get students of their own and—

The tears that streamed from his eyes began to evaporate even as they fell. He hadn't thought about it, until now, and his joy was gone with that realization. He would never see it, and for once he cursed fate with everything he had, because out of everything in the world, he would have wanted to see his students grow up. The pain, the loss, was unbearable, surreal; everything was both happening, because he could feel the heat and the pain, but not happening, because he had never even thought of what he would do in this situation when it finally came.

It was so hot. His skin was boiling, hissing, and he could smell his own flesh burning in his nose, and a deep heat was rising within him as Ragnaros neared, his hammer Sulfuras held up in preparation for a strike that would not just kill Gai, but would pound his very existence from the world.

He kept his eyes forwards. Nefarian was up, and had let loose a roar so powerful, and so profoundly terrifying, that even though Gai's mind was steeled for death, his body quailed and shook from the ancient curse issued from the dragon's mouth, one that Gai couldn't even pronounce, much less feel offended by.

A heat was rising within Gai. He started to grin, despite his tears. Sure, he wouldn't see anything anymore. But it didn't matter now, because it wasn't his choice. He'd had his chance, and now it was their turn, and he'd done all that he could. But they'd make it; he knew that. They'd succeed because that was the natural order; that was how things worked.

But also because he'd taught them. They'd succeed because they were his students, his friends, his _family_, and he was so goddamn proud of them. The despair was gone, the confusion filled with this unbelievable feeling of such pride and happiness, knowing that they would live on, and the world would change with them. It was such a wonderful feeling that he could no longer hold it in, because he never was good at that, never had been. Maito Gai loved to express his feelings to the world, and his students knew this best.

So he did it for them.

"HA! IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE?" He bellowed, laughing and crying, as if they were right there, glaring at him in annoyance like Neji and Tenten, or joining with him like Lee. He'd never see them again.

"PREPARE, DRAGON, FIRE LORD, FOR YOU MUST FACE SOMETHING THAT TRIUMPHS ALL! LET ME SHOW YOU THE GREATEST POWER IN THE WORLD!"

With great effort, he managed to raise his arms up above his head. He gazed into the burnt sky, and almost thought he could see them up there. Lee would be crying perhaps, but it would pass and he would grow even stronger because of it, so would Tenten, though Neji had always been strong, or at had least appeared to. The others would cry too, maybe. He wished he didn't have to leave. But he did.

It was his time.

Then he looked down to the earth, and saw only death, whom he smiled at, because there was no chance of avoiding him now.

Nefarian waited, curious.

Ragnaros did not, and its hammer dropped like an apocalyptic meteor.

'_Hachimon: Shimon'_

"THE POWER OF YOUTH!"

* * *

You may hate me for this. 

I know you will question it, but this might be the one thing I cannot truly explain to you guys; it wasn't done lightly, just know that. Gai is one of my favorite characters, and always will be.

So, though he survives in canon, let's have a brief moment of silence for Maito Gai.

-

-

-

-

Thanks.

Flame away.

General Grievous

Next chapter: _Stormwind: Kakuzu, Hidan, Kira, Kylia, Benedictus, Shino, Hinata, Kurenai, Kiba, Sakura, Naruto. Badlands_

**_Scroll of Seals:_**

_Asa Kujaku (Morning Peacock)_: Can only be used with _Keimon._ Extremely effective against single targets, riddles them with an almost impossible to block series of punches until they are thrown back, covered in fire.

_Hachimon: Shimon (Eight Gates: Gate of Death)_: The final of the Eight Celestial Gates, located in the heart, and generates enough chakra that the user is almost a god in terms of power, though it assures death in its use, hence its name. The body simply cannot use the amount of power that is generated, and is destroyed.

_Kage Kubi Shibari no Jutsu (Shadow Neck Bind Technique)_: The name says it all. Shadows bind the opponent's neck and either incapacitates or destroys them.

_Conflagration_: Utter flaming destruction, all around. Consumes enormous amounts of_chakra_, making it difficult to use for humans and other humanoid beings.


	28. The Zombie Twins

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or World of Warcraft or any of the characters that are not mine, though I am wearing their underwear. Collectively. Impressive, no?_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

"I'm fine," Kiba growled. "How's Kurenai-sensei, is she gonna be okay? She's gonna be okay, right?"

Kira nodded as confidently as she could. She pulled away from Kiba, who was resting near the side of the castle, where Shino had placed him earlier, and turned to Kurenai, who lay unconscious next to him, bloodied and bruised. Her hands moved to the woman's stomach, and then up, checking every minute detail of her chest and head with careful precision made slightly clumsy with worry.

"She's fine now," Kira said. "But it's too early to tell."

Kiba was shaking. "She's…her…it's gonna be okay, right?"

Kira glanced at him. "Yes. She should be."

"That ain't good enough!" Kiba cried. "Is her baby gonna be alright or not?"

Akamaru, his head resting on Kiba's thigh, whimpered and licked his partner's limp hand, but either Kiba couldn't feel it, or simply didn't acknowledge it, because he did not turn his desperate eyes away from Kira.

"I don't know!" Kira snapped, her calm seared away by worry and Kiba's own worried anger. "I'm doing my best but I can't do anything right now!"

"You have to get help," Kiba said, his anger dwindling. "Somebody, anybody. I'm gonna go show those bastards who—"

"You're staying here, with her," Kira said. "You're too injured to do anything."

"But—!"

Kira flashed him a look sharpened by anger, which silenced him immediately. She stood, a renewed worry and a bubbling anger welling within her. She knew she had to get help, but when she saw the ruined bodies of the entire Castle Guard, twisted, mangled and in as many pieces as shattered vases, she wondered how much she could get. If she called the rest of the Guard, she might be calling them to their deaths. If these two attackers had slain that many of her most elite soldiers, and had removed two shinobi from action, Kira wondered how much it would take to stop them.

She wished Tyrande were here. But she had seen nothing of the High Priestess in the past few days. She had said she would remain in the city, for at least as long as she thought necessary, just in case Vol'jin's fears did come true. Yet when they had, Tyrande was not there. Kira didn't think that Tyrande had ended up like the slaughtered guards, but at the same time she could not help but worry. There was something wrong with this situation—very wrong.

But she wanted to be here, more than anything. One of them was without a doubt the killer of Magni, and she refused to let him get away. She knew that it was because of Naruto she thought like this. Before, she wouldn't even have considered herself useful in such a battle.

But now, she wanted this battle, as a starving man craved food.

She glanced back at Kiba. "I'm going to leave you here, okay?"

Kiba nodded. "What're you gonna—?"

Kira answered by making a few seals.

'_Psyche Messenger'_

The air shimmered beside her temple, as if some gaseous substance was leaking out, and it slowly took a shape, barely visible in the night. It resembled a bird, as far as Kiba could tell, and it had no smell at all, other than that slight tickling of _chakra_. The invisible bird flapped its wings and took off into quickly receding day, vanishing almost instantly.

"The rest of the guard has been notified," said Kira. She made her way towards the entrance. "And hopefully Lady Tyrande, as well."

"Hey!" Kiba shouted. "Where're you going?"

Kira stopped. "To help!" she cried.

"W-what? H-how are you gonna—?"

"I'm not useless," said Kira, calmly. "Believe me. Someone will be here for you and Kurenai very soon, so please just try and stay calm."

"How can you tell me that?" Kiba snapped, trying to move, but failing miserably.

Kira shrugged. "There's nothing else you can do."

"That's a damn lie!" growled Kiba. "Akamaru!"

Akamaru raised his head.

"Go and protect her! I mean it!"

Far less injured than his partner, the dog gave him a miserable whine, but Kiba was adamant and kicked his leg to get Akamaru off of it, and to his feet. The dog growled in annoyance, but moved away, to Kira's side.

"Take him," said Kiba. "And listen to her, okay, Akamaru? And make sure Hinata and Shino are okay."

Akamaru barked in response. Kira gave Kiba a brief smile, and nodded, before taking off towards the castle.

* * *

Kakuzu slammed Shino into the wall of the library, but the boy burst apart in a shower of black insects, while Kakuzu's hand punched though the stone as if it were cardboard. The bugs did nothing, however, save irritate him. They crawled over his arms and body, but his skin was as tough as steel, and easily kept the bugs at bay. He turned, this time dodging a sweeping slash from Kylia's daggers, and then stepping forwards to knee the girl as hard as he could in the ribs. He felt them crack beneath him, and she gave a short, pained cry before she was flung back, rolling along the floor, resting on the far side of the room. Then Hinata was there, her fingers quickly jabbing, striking—trying to hit his constantly moving organs and _chakra_ system.

Fool, he thought. His shifting innards were not the result of conscious effort, but purely reactive, as involuntary as a blink. He had trained them like that, unknowingly disproving Kakashi's words to Naruto, long ago, that organs couldn't be trained. Any touch, however light, would make his organs shift away from that area. Even someone who could see their movements couldn't match it.

He swiped at her head with the side of his palm, but she flowed beneath it and struck him a dozen more times in the chest and shoulders—tiny, light taps that couldn't have hurt a child had they not had the burst of _chakra_ within. But each attack did nothing but show Hinata how futile trying to hit this man was, if he even was a man.

Shino was back. The boy raised a hand, covered in bugs. He made a seal.

'_Destruction Stinger'_

His hand was engulfed in a puff of smoke, and he lunged forwards, driving his arm at Kakuzu's stomach. It wasn't an arm anymore, but a wasp's stinger, shimmering black. Kakuzu took it, moving forwards at the same time, grabbing Shino roughly by the arm he was attacking with, and wrenching it violently to the side. It came off easily, but Shino showed no signs of pain and there was no shower of blood. The stinger became insects again, converging on the very point that they had struck. Shino then pulled down his collar, revealing his face. He opened his mouth and spat something with violent force up at Kakuzu's face.

Fast as he was, Kakuzu couldn't dodge something so quick, like a bullet, at such a close range. It smacked him in the collarbone, and he felt the first flash of pain since the battle had begun.

Stunned, Kakuzu's hand went to the wound, and found the source of the pain—a violently struggling black beetle, no larger than his thumb, trying to bore its way deeper into his body. It had cracked through his steel skin!

He grabbed the beetle and crushed it in his palm. Shino was moving back, pleased with this information.

So, thought Shino. When I concentrate my _chakra _into one of my bullet beetles, it can break his defense. The bullet beetle was effective because out of all of his insects, devoured the most _chakra_. It ate voraciously, and even weakened his opponent's use of _chakra_ with a special enzyme it secreted from its jaws. While the other insects had failed, this one had not. That was good. He now had an idea of how to win this.

If he kept his distance, he'd be at an advantage. As fast as he was, Kakuzu needed to be close in order to be effective. He hung still, waiting for Kakuzu to make the first move.

But the giant Akatsuki member's attention was only half on Shino; the other half lay on Hinata and Kylia, to his right. Hinata was helping the other girl up, and was healing her quickly. The fox wasn't visible, but that didn't matter. It could only do minimal damage.

Across the room, another battle was occurring.

"Come on old man, hit me!" Hidan was laughing hideously as he slashed and swung his glittering black scythe, each cut coming within a hair's breadth of slicing into Benedictus' flesh, but never quite reaching the old man, who moved as simply and swiftly as a feather sailing on the wind. He did not attack, merely watching the silver-haired man with his cunning golden eyes.

Hidan snarled. If he didn't at least scratch the man, it'd be useless. For an old-timer, he was quick. He suddenly stopped, and backed away.

"You're no fun," he said, scowling.

Benedictus didn't answer, but his eyes never wavered. This annoyed Hidan, but then again, most things did. He slouched, hefting the scythe onto his shoulder, and glared at the old man silently for a few moments, like a rebellious teenager would to an annoyed parent to annoy them further. He even stuck out his tongue.

"Stupid old bastard," said Hidan. "Are you giving up, like that shitty religion teaches you to?"

"Children who do not understand something should not speak of it," Benedictus said, calmly.

"Not understand?" Hidan laughed. "I understand that you guys are stupid enough to do nothing with your life. You devote yourself to such a stupid cause, something that is just fruitless anyways, because people, no matter how hard you try, will never be _good_." He grinned, watching Benedictus, though silent, grow ever angrier. He stoked the fire a little more.

"Nothing you guys do ever lasts, anyways. I don't know why you even try. Your religion is complete and utter shit, you know that?"

"Be quiet," said Benedictus, "child."

"That all you got?" the silver-haired man sneered.

Hidan's scythe moved faster than ever before. He swung it off his shoulder and released it in one motion, throwing it perfectly at Benedictus, who dodged, again by only an inch, only to move into Hidan, who after a burst of inhuman speed, was waiting to meet him. Something dark flickered out from Hidan's cloak—a pike, about half as long as his body, as black as the steel of his scythe. It only appeared for a second, long enough to graze Benedictus' shoulder, slicing the golden cloth and piercing his wrinkled flesh, before retracting with a single dollop of blood collected on the end. Hidan leapt back, laughing, though now Benedictus moved forwards, eyes wide, his anger now desperation. He grabbed Hidan's wrist, stopping the pike from moving any further, and then gripped the Jashin priest by the neck, choking him furiously as he attempted to wring the pike from the man's hands.

But Hidan held fast, grinning as he choked, uttering a horrible laugh as he did. With youth on his side, he overpowered Benedictus quickly. He broke the old man's nose with a headbutt and threw him off, before lifting the pike and licking the blood off the end, almost sensuously.

He then produced the dagger again, and slit his own throat.

Blood was released in a gushing spray, coating the floor before Hidan. His face twisted in ecstasy, and he produced a few spluttering sounds like laughs, or maybe moans of pleasure, as he moved into the center of the sanguine pool and dragged his feet through it.

Then Benedictus was on him again, his hands glowing a bright gold. Hidan backed away, sliding across the floor as gracefully as a dancer, as Benedictus pursued. The old man, wheezing, his face twisted in anger, lashed out with his glowing hands, making for Hidan's throat again. His hands grasped wounded flesh, making it hiss as Hidan's skin was broiled by the intensely hot _chakra_; the wound was cauterized, but it hardly dissuaded Hidan. He grabbed the old man's hand and threw it aside, sliding past him, back towards the largest pool. Benedictus followed, smashing his hands against Hidan's face and chest, desperation tainting every moment, making it far less smooth than before, and far less effective. Hidan did not stop, his eyes filled with glee. Benedictus made a seal, taking in a deep breath, but Hidan was already there, completing with a single step the last of a circle, surrounding a bloody triangle.

"TOO LATE!" Hidan roared, arms spread, eyes wide.

Benedictus released the built up _chakra_ he had, letting the _jutsu_ fail, but even as he did, he rushed at Hidan and threw all his weight into the Jashin priest. He had to get him out of the circle; he _had_ to or else—

It was not one step from reaching Hidan that white-hot, blinding pain erupted into being along Benedictus' thigh, making him stumble, nearly crashing into Hidan, who gripped the man by the throat, and pulled him up, staring straight into his face.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" he, breathing a coppery stench into the man's face, his mouth wide with glee. His face had changed. His face was no longer pale and young, but a mask of black, ageless—his skin was carved of pure darkness, in contrast to the bone-white now painted on his face and neck and chest, visible beneath the cloak; a pattern clearly resembling the bones of the human body, but so intricate and ornate that they could have been the bones themselves visible through the utter blackness of his skin. Hidan had become something every man feared, and no man desired.

But Hidan did not fear it, and desired it enough to become it.

He pulled the dagger from his leg, twisting it violently. Benedictus grit his teeth, and did not cry out, but longed to. It was pain beyond pain, pain beyond what a physical wound could produce. Red covered the front of his robes, appearing down his leg like blossoming flowers.

"That's the best part of the curse," Hidan said. "You can feel even more pain than normal. Pain is amazing, isn't it?" He dragged the blade up his own cheek, but the only blood that was visible was coming from Benedictus' face.

"Pain is the best thing in the world," Hidan continued. He thrust Benedictus away from him. The old man fell to the floor, gasping. "It's something, like death, that you can always count on. It's something eternal, you know? But it also has so many varieties…you know? That's what I love about it. And it can cause so many things. It's the route by which my practice is made true. The evil in the hearts of men is so easily brought out by pain, any kind of it. I mean, just look at you!" Hidan stooped down, staring right into Benedictus' eyes.

"Earlier, when Kakuzu broke the girl's neck, there was such pain in your eyes that it was glorious. I'd heard that you were really powerful, but when clouded by pain, you're not so tough, are you?" He grinned. "Just goes to show how pathetic your religion really is. You don't even seek to embrace that which is strongest in this world. Pain is the most powerful force in existence. Right alongside death, at least." He stood up again, dragging the dagger lazily across his chest, cutting a deep slash straight across it. Benedictus gagged, and twitched violently on the floor, but again, he did not cry out.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kylia caught this situation. She gasped, wanting to rush to the old man's aid, but Kakuzu seized his chance at the girl's distraction.

At the big Akatsuki member's movement, Shino spat another bullet beetle straight towards him. But Kakuzu was quick, and was at Kylia's side in less than a heartbeat, grasped the girl by the neck and began to squeeze. The bullet beetle struck his arm, and another followed a second later, but neither did much to stop Kakuzu's vicious assault. Kylia gagged, going purple, her eyes wide and her mouth open and gasping for air that would not come. Hinata was striking Kakuzu with everything she had, aiming for his head this time. But he was constantly dodging, and putting Kylia in front of her strikes. Hinata was desperate, horrified. The girl would die if she weren't soon freed!

Shino aimed another bullet beetle, but this time, Kakuzu didn't let him. The giant swung his free hand out, and somehow, it leapt from his arms across the room and grasped Shino by the neck, throwing him back into the wall. Then, it also began to squeeze.

Hinata was aghast. Kakuzu's arm now extended the length of the room, attached to his body by a series of black cords as thick as fingers. The discovery of the secret to his shifting organs did nothing, however, but make her realize how desperate this situation was. This man was not human; he couldn't be—so how did she fight him?

-

Hidan twirled his pike, grinning down at Benedictus. "Where should I put it, I wonder? Should I go for the other leg? Or maybe the neck, and with a follow up of the heart? There are so many places to put this," he laughed, and punctured his thigh again. Benedictus gasped, but finally managed to look up at the Jashin priest, his eyes full of golden hate.

"Disgusting," he said aloud. "Disgusting…you…call yourself…human?"

"Who cares?" said Hidan.

"Such…a…putrid…practice…" Benedictus said. "To take…such…joy…in…this."

Hidan's smile failed. "You don't know when to quit, do you? I've one, and you're still knockin' my faith? The fuck's wrong with you?" He lifted the pike, and held its point to his chest, over his heart. "I guess I'll just shut you up right now, you know? Be a hell of a lot easier than listening to you talk."

Kylia couldn't breath. All the energy was gone from her limbs, limp and dead by her sides. Her vision was blurred, darkening, and she knew that she would be dead soon enough. She couldn't stop it. She couldn't fight anymore, and she hated it, because she wouldn't get to see her mistress again, if even just for a second. She found herself mouthing Kira's name, but unable to say it, unable to utter more than a gurgle from her flattened windpipe. Kakuzu would not let go, would not let up, a waterfall of pain, resistant to all changes, ever-flowing, ever producing. She closed her eyes.

And all at once, she could breathe.

There was a vicious growling in her ear—Tsuwabuki was there, her jaws clamped on Kakuzu's arm, her amber eyes wide with rage. Another white animal—a dog, as big as the silver fox—had clamped its mouth around Kakuzu's neck, and was clawing his back, growling against his flesh. Kakuzu had dropped Shino, his extended arm recoiling back, and then falling limp halfway back; he released Kylia, who lay limp for a moment, as feeling rushed back to her limbs and she gathered enough strength to push herself away from the fighting giant. Neither animal would let go, even as Kakuzu swung them around. With his iron skin, they couldn't have been causing much damage, so why was he flinging them around with such force, such desperation? And why wasn't he moving?

Kakuzu's eyes were wide, but with the rest of his face hidden, it was impossible to tell whether from surprise, pain or fear; but his attempts turned frighteningly desperate, even as they slowed and he began to slump, and he managed to sluggishly totter towards the door, hoping to dash the animals off against the wall.

He didn't manage it.

A dozen bullet beetles hit him in the chest. He staggered back; Hinata was instantly before him, in perfect stance, her arms stretched out.

'_Kaiten'_

There was a rush of_chakra_, exploding outwards from Hinata, striking Kakuzu full in the chest. The Akatsuki member flew, striking the wall with such force that it burst beneath him, flying outwards into the darkening sky.

Kakuzu made no sound as he fell out of sight.

-

Hidan stopped. He suddenly couldn't move, couldn't perform the last strike that would finish his enemy. He tried again, tried to thrust it into his heart, but neither the blade, nor his arms, would move. He stared wildly up.

Kira was standing at the edge of the room, near the door, her arms held out, her eyes dead set upon him. They were as clear a violet as the darkening sky, with as much force as Benedictus' furious glare. Hidan grit his teeth, wanting to speak, but unable to.

"Master?" she cried. "Are you alright?"

Benedictus also couldn't speak, or move. She glanced at him once or twice, seeing his body shaking, but he did not move or say anything. She asked again, but again there was no response. Her eyes went back to Hidan. Though he couldn't move, his eyes were broiling with righteous hate, which was swiftly being born to animalistic fury. She could feel his desire to break free, and it grew more intense by the second as she stared into his dark, blood-filled eyes. He looked like a monster, a cruel mockery of even Sylvanas' Forsaken with his bone-like markings and black skin. She had felt hate like it—worse, even, from the Scarlet Crusade—but to have it so focused on her was another thing entirely, and she struggled to keep her grip on Hidan's body. If he were freed, it would take only a second for him to kill Benedictus. She bit her lip. What was she going to do now?

She glanced at Benedictus again, so close to Hidan's feet—there she saw the symbol drawn in blood, which Hidan stood over. Her heart pumped ever louder. She glanced at Hidan, and then at the symbol, and then at Hidan again. His eyes flicked to the ground, for but a fraction of a second, and then back to her.

She moved forwards—not quickly, but not slowly—until she was but a foot away from him. Still holding out one hand, she removed the pike from his hands—it slid as if he had no hold on it. She tossed it away, and then stood full in front of him. She would have only a second, if she were correct. She glanced down at Benedictus.

The golden eyes were shining.

Kira turned back, and then with all of her mind, she _pushed_.

Hidan was thrown back, out of the circle. Benedictus gasped, and bellowed.

"Finish him, Kira!"

Kira's hands were blurs as she wove the string of hand seals. She thrust them out again.

'_Holy Judgment'_

Streams of golden light exploded from Kira's body, all around her, as if she were a beacon lighting up in the dark; the streams then converged, in seconds, on a single point—Hidan.

The light blasts did not quite tear him apart. They removed him of both his arms, and riddled his torso with holes, gouging out huge chunks of his blackened skin and spraying the entire room with thick, dark blood. A beam seared his neck almost in two, and then another took his head off completely, while the rest riddle his body so full of holes that it was less a body and more negative space than anything. This remainder dropped in a heap, gushing blood, smoking like a wet fire.

Kira gasped, sagging forwards. Her _chakra_ was nearly spent, with that attack and holding Hidan for so long. She turned around quickly, so as not to stare at what remained of the Akatsuki member.

Benedictus was trying to stand. Kira quickly bent down to help, but he waved her off.

"Stop," he said. His eyes were focused behind her. "Is he dead?"

Kira swallowed. "Does he look it?"

"Quite."

"Then he must be," she said.

Benedictus did nothing—he simply stared past her at the bloody rags and pile of flesh and bones.

"K-Kira…" Kylia coughed from across the room, before attempting to feebly stumble over, and failing miserably. Hinata stopped her fall, and supported her across the room, to where Kira stood.

"Kylia," Kira gasped, touching the girl on the shoulder. She did not ask the girl if she was alright—the purple bruises on her neck, shaped like a hand, told her that. Kira smiled at her, however, and pulled the girl into a half-hug, half-support. She threw a grateful look at Hinata, but no words passed between them.

Shino was resting against the door, Akamaru licking his face and whining. Tsuwabuki was gazing out the hole the Kakuzu had fallen from, and did not move from that spot, even when Kira called her.

"What happened to him?" Kira asked.

"W-we don't know," Kylia said.

"Fools," Benedictus said. "Always confirm whether your enemy is finished or not."

Shino glanced over. "My bugs," he said aloud, "say that he is not where he landed. He is gone."

"Where?" Kira asked.

"To where he came from, perhaps," said Benedictus. Then his eyes widened. "Or perhaps not."

Kira turned. He was standing there, not ten feet from her. She had not heard him once, and he bore no wound other than tears on his sleeves and a few rips on his stomach where Hinata had hit him with the _Kaiten_.

He clutched something in his hand, which dripped darkness in a constant stream. His eyes were narrowed, black as pits, soulless as machines.

"Good god, you are all such trouble. No wonder he wants you dead," he said, evenly. "Hidan, I told you not to die."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, KAKUZU!" a voice bellowed from behind the giant. Kira froze. How—?

"Even without a body, you're as loud as ever, Hidan," Kakuzu said, not even bothering to turn to acknowledge the disembodied head by his feet, as he kept his eyes warily on Kira and the two animals. "The poison barbs that silver fox has are impressive, I'll admit. They pierced me before I had even realized I was being attacked." What praise, Kira scoffed. She still couldn't make out what was in the man's hand, dripping like that.

"You take far too long in everything you do, Hidan," Kakuzu said. "Finish this quick. We can't allow it to last any longer."

"Fuck! I know! Just shut the hell up and help me up! This fucking hurts, a lot, you bastard!"

"I thought you enjoyed it." But even as he said that, Kakuzu had raised his hands. The thing he clutched became visible, as he performed a hand seal, using Hidan's severed hand as the second half.

'_Blood Resurrection'_

The pool around Hidan surged, up, circling Kakuzu in a bloody whirlwind. Benedictus shouted for someone to stop him, and Kira reacted first, raising her hands to perform another _jutsu_.

But it had ended just as quickly as it had started. Kakuzu emerged from the bloody storm, making straight for Kira. She changed tactics immediately, calling a shield up around her and Benedictus.

But Kakuzu changed too. He swerved past them, swinging at Hinata, who twisted, releasing a burst of _chakra_ as she spun, but not fast enough. Kakuzu's strike was so powerful that she was thrown back, cracking against the wall that Shino rested near, and blacking out immediately. Kylia tried to attack, a pair of glittering knives flickering into her hands, but Kakuzu was too fast. Threads of black burst from beneath his cloak, coiling around her wrists and piercing her skin all the way up her arms. The knives imbedded beneath her skin clattered to the ground, as she screamed in pain and fought to free herself once more.

Kira whirled with Kakuzu's movement, but Benedictus shouted to focus behind her. She turned again, and saw that the blood cloud had vanished, and Hidan was there, fully intact, his teeth glowing white against his terribly black skin.

"Die, heathen!"

The black scythe flew.

-

Akamaru and Tsuwabuki attacked, Shino right behind them. A howling blast hit Kakuzu in the chest, while Akamaru attacked the cords with his fangs and claws; but they were like iron, and did not break no matter how much vicious tearing he did, even as more wrapped around him, and began to invade his skin. He broke off his attack, growling, and then whimpering, as the black cords tore there way through him, moving towards his heart. Tsuwabuki attacked again, but it was as ineffective as the first—it merely ruffled Kakuzu's torn cloak. She snarled, and made for his throat, her silver fur glinting like knife blades. Shino was behind her, his hands out in both directions.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu'_

Clouds of smoke exploded from his hands, engulfing him entirely. Kakuzu immediately ignored Tsuwabuki, and detached himself from Kylia and Akamaru, the black cords shrinking back into his body. He flung the girl and dog away, unconscious. A huge black claw emerged from the smoke Shino had created, and a hideous buzzing sound filled the room, so piercing that as unshakable as he seemed, even Kakuzu shrunk away.

A beetle, three times as large as a horse and cart, bent down and snapped Kakuzu up in jaws as long as a man. The jaws could have sliced a normal man in two within half a second, and even with his iron skin, Kakuzu was struggling to free himself, that tinge of desperation returning to his movements.

'Out,' Shino said to his summon, in a manner that only he and the creature could understand—a humming not unlike what the creature was emitting. 'Take him out of here.'

The beetle screeched a response only Shino would understand, and crashed through the wall, into the evening air. It fell two stories, the ground shaking with its landing. Still it clutched Kakuzu in its jaws, buzzing furiously, and still the Akatsuki member struggled making no sound at all.

Shino flung himself from the wall, landing beside his summon on the grassy ground. He wondered how much it would take to remove the iron skin, if it was possible. He had to end it quickly, because experience had shown him that this man was as tenacious as a mosquito seeking nourishment.

And because he would not let the man who had caused his teacher and friends so much pain to live any longer.

He hummed to his insect again. "Kill him. Quickly."

It responded with a buzz, and then Kakuzu began to cry out, as it increased the pressure twofold. Shino could hear a crack somewhere above him, and he had to remove his sunglasses to see properly what it was—Kakuzu had stopped moving. There was no life left in his body—it hung limply in the insect's jaws.

Good, he thought. But, to be sure…

He hummed again. The beetle gave a decisive, final snap, and Kakuzu's body fell in two pieces, spraying thick, deeply black blood. It fell in two thumps on the ground, and Shino saw no more movement from them.

* * *

Kira dodged. The scythe swept past her, over Benedictus. She raised her hands, and took a breath.

'_Holy Bolt'_

She flung out a hand. A shaft of light struck Hidan in the chest, and the ground was coated in blood again, though Hidan didn't fall this time.

Instead, he laughed.

"What are you trying to do, exactly, girl? Kill me?" He snickered. "It's impossible. Totally impossible! You can't kill something that's immortal!"

"He's wrong," said Benedictus. "He is not immortal."

Hidan glanced at him. "Oh?"

"That's his secret, Kira. That is his ritual. It does not only kill the user, but each time he drinks a person's blood, he drains their life force as well. Blood is life, haven't I told you that? Even though it only takes a single drop of blood to do it, he can somehow extend his own life beyond a normal human's. Each drop grants him their life. That is his secret—he steals life from them, shielding his own." Benedictus coughed, and fell back, gasping, completely spent from his revelation. But he was smiling even so. He had said what he had needed to.

Hidan was very quiet, but he was not still. He was walking forwards, staring emotionlessly at the old man. For once, his emotions were nowhere near his sleeve.

Then, he smiled—first grimly, then mockingly, and then manically.

"So you figured it out, huh? Good for you. Doesn't change a thing, you know? Sure, I take life from people I kill, using my ritual. You're pretty smart, old man." He twirled his hand, recalling the scythe, and he kept walking, very slowly. "But you know what? If you're so smart, then you must know what happened to all the other members of my faith, you know? They're all dead, right? Wanna know why that is?" He grinned, his smile like a half-moon against the night sky of his face.

"Because I killed them. With my ritual. Now, tell me what that means, you old geezer?"

Benedictus had gone white. Kira had as well, as she stepped back, trembling, away from the slowly advancing monster.

"That's right. All of those lives they had taken, all of their 'immortality' is now mine. That's thousands—millions, maybe, of lives for me to use, and I can always get more. There's no way you'll be able to kill me that many times, not even in a lifetime. Stupid, did you really think," his red eyes leered at Kira, "that I'd be so easily killed, after all that? So what're you going to do now, huh? What? Just try and stop me—just try! Jashin-sama be praised, I will enlighten these complete fuckers, and bathe in their blood! Let me slaughter them all!"

With this glorious bellow he swung the scythe at Kira's head. She stepped back to dodge, but stumbled, tripping over the black pike she had removed from him earlier, losing precious seconds as the scythe whirled at her, close enough to take her fair head off.

But the scythe did not reach her.

It stopped, or was forced to stop, with its blade a foot from Kira's head. Quivering with the force of the stop and emitting a metallic hum, the weapon hung in mid-air, the topmost blade clutched between two fingers belonging to an exhausted Sakura, who shook with the effort of stopping such a powerful blow.

Hidan's eyes widened. "The hell…?" He hadn't even seen her!

Kira stared at Sakura. "What—?"

"Don't sound too happy," said Sakura, keeping her eyes on Hidan. "I didn't just run up three flights of stairs to save you, or anything."

"Bitch!" Hidan snapped, trying to wrench the blade free, but found that he couldn't at all. How strong was she?

"Shut it," said Sakura, her eyes flashing. "I'm not in the mood." She wrenched the weapon from his hands, with barely a flick of her wrist. She followed it with a bone-breaking punch to Hidan's gut, throwing the man clear across the room and into the altar, which exploded from the contact. Sakura then bent the weapon and tossed it away, her body quivering with effort and exhaustion.

"You don't have to thank me," said Sakura, to Kira, who stood numbly behind her. "I can tell you're grateful." Despite her exhaustion, she was smirking, and it brought Kira back to her senses enough to shiver and then remember the situation they were in.

"Wait," she said, "he's not down, not yet."

Sakura blinked, and looked to the ruined altar. Hidan was up, his chest heaving, his body covered in splinters and oozing blood from a number of orifices; yet not one step wavered as he rushed to give his counterattack, drawing another dagger from the folds of his cloak, his fast twisted in rage.

"Die bitch!"

"Don't let him cut you, not even once!" Kira shouted.

Sakura barely registered the words before she attacked, but they hit just in time to avoid a cruel slice across her chest. She punched Hidan again, this time in the arm, which broke in a vicious crack—but Hidan didn't waver. He spun with the force of the hit and hammered her in the face with his fist, aiming for her nose. The hit struck her cheek instead, and though it was jarring, it drew no blood. Sakura ignored it and struck back, this time in the chest. Hidan flew once more, cracking the wall with his impact.

But again he recovered, as if the fatal strike were no more than a scratch. Sakura stared at him wildly, unable to move from horror. Just what was this guy? How could he—?

"You can't kill him normally," said Kira, gasping. "He has thousands of lives within him—he won't die just like that."

"Then how—?"

"I don't know," said Kira, softly. She glanced back at Benedictus; the old man lay unconscious now, unable to keep himself awake from the effort.

"I just don't know."

Shino looked at the silver fox by his side, whose wise eyes were shifting from him to the remainders of Kakuzu behind him, staining the grass even darker. She seemed edgy, and growled for his attention.

"He's dead," he said.

Tsuwabuki growled again. He turned his attention to the body, and though he told himself it wasn't possible, he thought it best to err on the side of caution, and walked over, very slowly. He met Kakuzu's front half first; one look into the bottomless eyes, wide and staring, told him what he needed to know. But he had to make sure.

He stooped down, reaching to touch the man's chest.

Somewhere above him, he heard a crash. He stopped and glanced back. No. He had to get back, if he didn't, Kira-dono might lose. He stood and hummed to his beetle.

'Up,' he said. 'We must help her.'

Shino leapt onto its back as it scuttled up the wall, moving faster than a creature its size should. He was nearing the top when he heard a sound below—Tsuwabuki's growling, though far louder, and a few frantic barks.

He turned.

There was a blinding flash from below—and suddenly Shino's body seized up, pain flashing through it so quickly and so brutally that he had no time to register where it came from, and then he was falling. He hit the ground on his back, barely registering the pain from it, his body shaking and numb. His heart beat wildly and his thoughts rushed and tripped over each other, and he couldn't think until a dark face loomed over him, so high up it might have been from a mountaintop.

He saw the dark eyes, white against black, staring down at him.

How…?

"Almost, boy," Kakuzu said. "But you should have checked while you had the chance."

Shino's vision was then blotted out—there was a rush of pain, a vicious crack, and then nothing at all.

* * *

Above this, Kira's mind raced. There was nothing in front of her, no discernible solution to this problem. They couldn't last much longer, and if Shino failed below, then they might have to deal with the other one as well, and she knew that he would be even worse than Hidan. But how did you stop someone like Hidan? She remembered again, that when he had been torn apart, he had relied on Kakuzu to repair him. Could that be true always? Maybe they only had to disable him, to remove his ability to move, and not kill him?

His head, she thought. If she took off his head, then there would be no way he could move after that.

"His head," she said to Sakura.

The girl gave the barest of nods; evidently, she'd already thought of that.

"My head?" Hidan sneered. "That all you can think of? Not gonna work. I'll just pick it up again, whore."

Kira grit her teeth, unwavering—but she saw that Sakura was having second thoughts.

"Don't doubt it, he's lying," she said. He had to be. There was no way he could control his body when his head was disconnected from it. Right?

Sakura glanced briefly back, but nodded again.

"Your funeral," Hidan said. He twirled his dagger. "But I guess I could end this before you even try, you know?"

He grinned, and lifted the dagger. Both Kira and Sakura tensed, even as he drove the dagger into his chest, and wrenched it down, opening a wound all the way down his chest.

Blood flowed out, not like a stream, but a cloud. It rose up, bulging and pulsing like a hideous worm, growing ever larger as it moved out. Hidan's eyes were wide with ecstasy, but he was screaming in agony. And laughing, and hideous, high-pitched laugh, as the lives flooded from his body.

Kira felt them—a sudden deluge of the most hideous feelings she had ever experienced. Not even the ever-changing emotions of Demetria matched the waves of despair that flooded from Hidan's body, mixing in the air with the feelings of his own pleasure, like two distinctly different flavors combining in a vomit-inducing dish not fit to be served even in the poorest of homes. Thousands upon thousands of people suddenly filled the room, and for Kira, it was almost too much to stand.

The cloud stopped gushing, and now hovered a few feet above Hidan, touching the ceiling, which began to melt at its touch. Hidan was grinning, and held out his hand to the bulging blob. His hand began to hiss when he touched it, but he showed no signs of pain, only pleasure.

"It's all in the blood," he said, softly. "Can you feel it? The pain? Isn't it glorious? This pain will never end, not for any of them. That's what I so love about it." He grinned. "It's so _eternal_."

He slammed his hands together in a seal.

'_Dance of the Dead'_

The bloody blob burst, flinging shards of deadly blood across the room. Kira threw up a shield, protecting herself, Sakura and Benedictus, but the caustic rain began to melt through it almost as soon as she did. Her eyes went wide, and she nearly lost her grip on the _jutsu_.

"Watch out!" Sakura cried.

Hidan was moving again, against the rain, towards them. He brandished his dagger, leering.

"Let me out!" Sakura shouted.

The rain had stopped. Kira dropped the shield.

Hidan laughed. "NO GOOD!"

He raised his hands; a single blob rushed leapt from the ground, attaching itself to Sakura's leg. She bit off a scream, shaking the blood off, but it was gone. It detached itself, and sailed at Hidan, who opened his mouth and devoured the blob. He stopped—and the blood pooled around him, forming a circle with a single triangle within.

"NO!" Kira bellowed.

"DIE!" Hidan roared.

'_Psychic Scream'_

Hidan dropped his dagger, and his eyes bulged. A soundless scream, worse than a banshee's prophetic cry or a harpy's wrathful screech, exploded throughout the room—but only he could hear it. It was overwhelming, beyond anything he could ever have imagined. A terror that he had not known since his childhood, locked away in those cloistered black walls deep in those dark mountains where he had trained for years, seeped in death and destruction to become both incarnate, exploded into being within him. He cried out, not in pain, but in fear, for the first time since those dark days, where his fragile, finite innocence had been stripped away. Nothing worth having was finite. Nothing. Everything had to be infinite, eternal. Pain. Pain was eternal, he had discovered. Yes, that was it. Pain. And death. Everything died. That was it! _Death was unstoppable!_ He stumbled back, scrambling away from that renewed fear, a fear that had only plagued him as a heathen, a mortal. But it hadn't been fear for long.

How could you fear something you sought to become?

Kira noticed it in a heartbeat. She had not done it, and she looked at Sakura—the girl was standing there, unafraid, her hands still holding the seal. She had no time to wonder how Sakura knew that technique because she knew that it didn't last, especially for those like Hidan, filled with such conviction and zeal.

"Behind him!" she shouted to Sakura. The girl moved, rushing towards the frightened man, who had suddenly realized that he had nothing to be afraid of. He had become his fear. He had mastered it! He snapped from his trance, lifted his dagger, and plunged it into his heart.

'_Power Word: Seal'_

Kira's hands emitted a bluish glow, as she pushed them to the floor; lines of runic writing flowed from her hands, as clear blue as the afternoon sky, and scuttled across the floor, over Hidan's bloody symbol, and up his legs and thighs, wrapping around his stomach, chest and arms, and then his head. He issued a soundless scream, perhaps because of the_jutsu_, perhaps because of the simply amazing pain rushing through him.

His eyes were wide with unimaginable pleasure. Another life taken. Another life for his faith.

Then he felt hands on his head, one around his neck, the other wrapped over his forehead. They were soft, effeminate, and small enough to be a child's.

His eyes glanced down, for a fraction of a second. He stood not an inch from his symbol, his foot nearly touching the edge, but still out, still ineffective.

He uttered a curse, but it was lost amidst the sickening tearing sound of his head being twisted from his neck, the spine cracking and breaking and the blood gushing and splattering against Sakura's face and her own snarl of fury as she ended the fight, just like that.

Hidan's body twitched, and slumped back against Sakura, as she stumbled back, dropping the head and gagging against the deluge of blood that had assailed her. Hidan's head rolled a good distance from his body, its eyes closed, its face frozen, covered in glowing blue markings. His black skin faded to normal, as Hidan's curse was sealed away by Kira's _jutsu_.

Sakura stood, shaking with disgust and adrenaline, staring wide-eyed at Hidan's unmoving body. She then glanced up, at Kira.

The girl was smiling.

She felt relief; the tension flowed from her body, and she nearly joined Hidan on the floor, but just barely managed to keep herself standing, which was good, or else she never would have seen it.

Near the wall, near the hole, a black shadow, suddenly moving. She had no time to shout, no time to move. Kakuzu was suddenly behind Kira, his arms stretching around her head, ready to do what he had intended to do from the start. Sakura caught only a glimpse of his eyes in the darkness, and they would haunt her for years to come.

Then Kakuzu stopped, a second away from snapping Kira's neck. His eyes went wide. Sakura could just see it, glinting from the gap in Kakuzu's cloak: a silvery-white blade.

Kira had seen Sakura's start, and had turned, but by the time she had, it was already over. Kakuzu stumbled back, stunned, and then slumped to the ground, Naruto's sword sticking from his back, the boy himself standing behind the giant, half-obscured by shadows. Black markings faded from the boy's face as he stepped away from Kakuzu, looking at Sakura and then Kira.

"Oi," he said, gasping, "you alright?"

* * *

Again, a short chapter, but they'll be shorter from now on. I got a lot of things coming up in the next few weeks—exams mostly, so I am going to have to shorten them considerably if you guys want them. I realize that some of you like longer chapters, but what's the point of longer chapters if you have to read them so far apart? I'll try to get one out in the next week, as well.

Tell me how it went—I particularly like this chapter, though I don't know why.

Also, for those annoyed at Naruto's screen time, don't worry, it'll pick up in the next few chapters. He's got a big fight ahead of him, as you might know…

And what is to become of Hidan? Is it down for the count? Who knows…?

Hope you enjoyed it!

General Grievous

Next Chapter: _The Badlands, Blackrock Spire, Stormwind._


	29. Time Marches On

_Disclaimer: __Look! I added underline! WHEEEEE!!!! I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft!_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Nobody knew how long it took to get away from the battle, but by the time they arrived safely at the borders of the Burning Steppes, Ino still felt no pressure from her body's original owner. Thus, she was easily able to take them into the mountains, where she left a final command seared into the consciousness of her borrowed body. It was something she had only learned to do recently, and she felt a vicious stab of pride when she did it, before slipping back into her body. As soon as she did, the dragonspawn turned without a sound, and bashed its brains out on the side of the mountain; it took a few moments of constant dashing against the rocks, so hard that a rockslide may have occurred before the creature's skull was penetrated, but it finally stumbled, and fell, and died without so much as a whimper. There was so much of its blood staining the rocks that at one point Ino might have been sickened at the sight of it. 

But at that time, she wasn't. She didn't care at all. She didn't think any of them did. They all stayed behind to watch, making sure the dragonspawn dead before leaving the area.

There was no talking; no sounds at all, save for the distant crashes of unearthly battle. At one point, the sounds reached a crescendo, before they stopped completely. It was like the end of an orchestra—sudden and decisively final. Somehow, the battle that had begun just hours ago had ended. Then it was perfect silence. There were no beasts alive to caw or call, no wind to rustle the nonexistent greenery or dislodge a few pebbles high above them.

It was as if the world was holding a silent vigil for him, too. As if it were just as shocked and despaired as they. Or perhaps it was the usher calling for silence, as they marched slowly away from the grave.

Or perhaps it was that silence after a great battle, before the victor was truly known, before one side finally realized that they no longer had anything to fear, and there was no more killing to do.

Perhaps he wasn't even considered at all, so insignificant, small and weak against the legendary battle that had just taken place.

At one point, Shikamaru glanced up. Behind him, above the rocks, the black clouds were moving, and glinting colors that did not befit it. They did not make any sound. He stopped to watch it a moment, Thauraan by his side, and the others did too. They said nothing, just stared straight up at the draconic cloud, spiraling up in victory.

There was a ripple among them—a bristling of every one of their shoulders and a narrowing of each of their eyes. Nobody knew how long they stood there, just watching the dark cloud of dragons. They watched it until it was all gone, until the victory flight was over, and they had returned to their mountaintop in celebration. But when it was over, the group turned and continued moving, and though none of them noticed it, it was with renewed purpose.

They stopped once, refilling their water supply at a small pool that had collected in a cave. It was cool and refreshing; but all this was soundless, and done without smiling or expressions of relief and joy. It seemed mechanical, forced, all born from necessity. It seemed almost wrong to feel joy during this time.

Shikamaru didn't think all that much in the time it took them to get down from the mountains, away from the black clouds and smell of sulfur, where they were met with a vast desert of sunset red rock and sand, dotted with distant mesas and rocky towers that seemed precariously balanced, yet hung as still as if they were suspended in time. They took refuge beneath one such tower, where it provided a nice shade against the scorching sun. Even when they sat down, nobody spoke, or moved much. Ino, Chouji and Neji slept, or at least tried to—but their dreams were terrifying, so they would awake for a few moments in shaking horror, and then after a time, exhaustion would claim them again. Tenten and Undrig kept watch, though there was little to guard against; they saw a few large grey dogs in the distance once, but they didn't approach them, perhaps smelling the fire and dragon on their clothes and in their hearts. Asuma and Shikamaru stared at the streams of rich blue and pure white above them, losing themselves in the infinite swimming heavens that they had never expected to see again.

Lee had shrunk into himself. He sat by Tenten, and did nothing but stare at the ground. He didn't even notice, or care, when Tenten put her arm around him, and hugged him tightly. She didn't say anything, and neither did he.

They rested there the remainder of the day, in silence, until night fell, and sleep took them all to restless dreams. It was a dark night for them all, and a welcome frigidness to the air that no one was bothered by. None of them could remember a time when the cold had been bothersome. Now they preferred it—the heat carried reminders.

It was the next morning that anyone spoke for the first time since they had left the battle. It was Undrig.

"There's an outpost near 'ere," he glanced into the sweltering distance, towards the mountains. "Former 'Orde," he said. "Given this new alliance, they should take us." He looked at Shikamaru.

The boy nodded. "Okay." His voice was hoarse, scratchy. He took a drink of water, and nodded again. "Good, lead the way."

Undrig nodded, and they went on. He walked alongside Shikamaru, who was the head of everyone else. Thauraan stuck to him like glue, but no longer clutched his hand like a frightened child. He seemed tired, and kept his eyes on the burgundy sand they trudged through.

"Got a question for ye," said Undrig, softly, so that only Shikamaru could hear.

"What?"

"'Ow long you gonna keep this up?"

Shikamaru glanced at him. "What?"

Undrig glanced back. "This…forgive me I soun' heartless, but…this…poutin'."

Shikamaru's eyes flickered with pain, and anger. "Pouting? You think this is a child's tantrum?"

"Nah," said Undrig, keeping an even face. "But yer a leader. Act like one. Dwellin' in yer sorrow ain' gonna do nothin' but cause trouble fer all o' yehs."

Shikamaru turned away from Undrig, and glared forwards. "Who made me leader?" he snapped.

"Tha's obvious," snapped Undrig. "An' if you don' know, then you're stupider than I thought. Yer doin' him a disservice, actin' like this."

Shikamaru's anger seemed to dissolve. He turned away, words failing him.

"Say somethin' to them," said Undrig. "'E 'ad a lot o' faith in ye, all o' ye, and it'd be stupid to keep thinkin' like this when it won' be doin' any o' you any good. Tha' man didn' save yer lives so you could wallow in despair. Save yer grievin' for when it's all over—'sides, I'm assumin' you've got plans for what happens after."

Shikamaru knew what he was talking about. He nodded, grimly. It was the only thing he had thought of since they had started walking that morning, flitting about in his mind, always changing as swiftly as a child's fancy.

He finally looked into Undrig's eyes again. The dwarf met his gaze with one as hard as stone, so Shikamaru gave a very brief nod.

"Okay."

Undrig nodded, satisfied, and then drifted to the back of the group. Left alone to his thoughts, Shikamaru stared into the vast distance, wiping his forehead of sweat and drying his hands on his trousers. He stole a glance at Thauraan, whose head was still hung, and whose lips were still firmly shut. Shikamaru had to marvel at the child's eyes, however. The ice was gone from them, the look of cool clarity melted away by the trauma of the past few days. They were clear and bright and filled with roiling emotions that the child was still unable to express on his face, and probably still unable to comprehend, unable to know exactly what to do with them. He was only walking, and only still assuming that cold, deadened look because it was all he knew how to do in the face of such an army of thoughts and feelings that he had never experienced before.

"Hey," Shikamaru said.

Thauraan glanced up at him. "What?"

"Do you understand why Gai-sensei did that?"

Thauraan shook his head, very briefly. "No."

"Because he was right," said Shikamaru. "We're going to be the ones who shape the world, because the people who are handling it now are too locked in their prejudice and bad blood to see what could be in store for them. Do you know why we were sent to get you? Really?"

Thauraan nodded. "You wanted me to become King of Ironforge, because I am the next legitimate heir."

"No." Shikamaru smiled down at him. He was aware that the others were listening, and watching. He could feel their gazes on him, but he felt oddly calm.

"We were sent because you're going to be one who _can_ shape the future, someone of such influence that you'd be able to make a huge difference. My friend—his name is Naruto—came here a while back. He and the Princess of Stormwind had this idea that they would bring together all of the races of the world to fight under one name, so that the future would contain none of the hate that the present does—that the people of this world could forget their hate, with time. They've got a great idea, and they've done a lot already, but I think even they know that it won't last beyond this generation if the next isn't educated, isn't free of prejudice—you know?" He scratched his nose, and glanced up into the cloudy, blue sky.

"That's why we came to get you. Because as you grow, you'll be able to see what the future holds with a clear mind and with no hate clouding your heart. I think that's why Gai-sensei came at least. I know he's been working on us for a while, but I think he saw this as a chance to teach one last person—you—how important you are, to the future." Suddenly, Shikamaru felt a little embarrassed.

"Geez," he said, scratching his head. "I can almost smell the cheese coming off those words. But I think that's what he believed, at least. He wanted you to be conscientious of your future, of how you could shape the world. And, to be fair, I do too." He smiled at Thauraan, who blinked up at him with now wide eyes, like glittering onyxes embedded in stone. "I think, given the chance, you'll be a great king, even better than your grandfather, and a hell of a lot better than your father. I'm sure Gai-sensei thought so too."

Shikamaru only then became aware that they had all stopped, there in the midst of that great, craggy plain, standing atop the rocks as red as though eternally embraced by the horizon of twilight. The sun raged overhead, making him sweat along with the rush of blood to his face and the realization that so many people were staring at him. But he kept his eyes down, linked with Thauraan's. The dwarfling's face had changed, and the look of childlike hope had vanished, replaced with an expression more like what Shikamaru had first seem him with, cultured, closed. But behind his eyes was something profoundly different; it was as if Shikamaru's words had become fact, had done more than just spill from his mouth in embarrassed, groundless praise. As if they had become so engrained in Thauraan's mind and body that like the seeds of a tree, they had sprouted and taken root.

Behind his eyes, Shikamaru saw profound hope, evident in those shining, wide black eyes. They were a little like his eyes, Shikamaru thought. They just had to be blue.

Thauraan turned away for a while. "Maybe I didn't hate her."

Shikamaru blinked. "Hmm?"

"My mother. I don't think I did hate her. Not really. She never did anything to harm me. Even though she did nothing but obey my father, she was always kind to me, no matter what mood he was in. M-maybe," his voice quavered, and his iron mask had cracked, "Maybe I d-din' hate her."

Shikamaru smiled, and nodded. "That's…good."

Somewhere behind him, there was a snort. Shikamaru turned briefly, and saw Ino desperately attempting to stifle her laughter. A moment later she burst out laughing, and Chouji, standing next to her, did as well.

"What was that?" Chouji wheezed, between laughs.

"You may be a master of shadows, you lazy bum, but you're also a master ofshitty speaking?" Ino snickered, tears streaming from her eyes.

Perhaps because it was so absurd to be laughing at such a time—and in such a place, Shikamaru couldn't help it. Despite the embarrassment, the despair that still ate at his heart, a stream of laughter exploded from deep inside Shikamaru's stomach, and he suddenly couldn't move save for his involuntary clutching of his belly, and the buckling of his knees, and the shaking of his entire body. Shikamaru, even as he laughed, wondered why he was doing it. It was heartless, and he was probably pissing Neji, Tenten and Lee off beyond what words could describe.

But he heard more laughter join them. Tenten's high tittering wail, halfway between a sobs and peals of deep laughter; Neji's short, fluid waves of hilarity; and Lee's, loudest of all, trumping every one else's laugh with great explosions, each laden with all of Lee's emotions—the anger, the sadness, and the joy, bowled into one. Somewhere along the line, Undrig joined them; his laughs like miniature earthquakes, and then Thauraan too, sounding like a disturbance of rocks on a mountain. They were all laughing, none of them knew quite why, but none of them quite cared. They shared laughter, with each other, and with the one who was no longer with them.

They could hear him, too. His laugh rang out among them, and for a time, he was back.

* * *

It was almost half a day before they knew for sure that everyone was going to survive. Eight painfully long hours of nothing but waiting for Naruto, and constant activity for Sakura and Kira and the rest of the healers at Stormwind's infirmary. Naruto spent most of the time sitting in a chair by the operating room, scratching Tsuwabuki's ears and conversing with her in near silence, while the room behind them raged with activity. There were points where he was sure that someone was going to come out, and announce that somebody hadn't made it. All of them had been hurt so bad—Shino had nearly had his faced crushed in, Kylia had lost so much blood that she'd need two transfusions to insure that she didn't go into anemic shock, the damage to Benedictus' legs might be irreversible, and Kurenai…. 

Kurenai had numerous wounds from her fight with the giant Akatsuki member, though it wasn't so much her life as the growing child inside her that Naruto worried about. He'd pieced together the child's existence by listening to the healers' frantic shouts, and when he'd realized it, a coldness he'd never felt before descended through his limbs and settled in the pit of his stomach, freezing it like a lake in winter. The thought was so disturbing that he shuddered every time it passed through his mind, which was often in those eight hours. He kept himself calm by assuring himself that Kira and Sakura were in there, and by stroking Tsuwabuki's fur as she rested her head on his lap. It'd been ages since he'd seen her, and it was comforting to have her back with him.

But he hated this, and she knew it. He hated being helpless, and this was the only case in which he was totally so.

'_**You have skilled friends'**_ she'd told him, in assurance.

"Yeah," he said, smiling. That one thing still comforted him.

Finally, it ended. Kira and Sakura stumbled from the room, exhausted, with the other four healers. Naruto leapt to his feet.

"They—?"

Sakura gave him a relieved smile. "Of course. They're all going to make it."

"Even the baby?" he said.

The two girls exchanged surprised glances. "How did you—?" Kira said.

"I overheard," he said, scratching his head. "But is it…?"

"Yes," said Kira. "It will be fine, as far as we can tell. No apparent abnormalities, and it's still developing healthily." She spared him some medical jargon, and instead said. "Have you gotten any sleep?"

"No," said Naruto. "How could I?"

Kira nodded, "You should get some. We're going to, right now," she said, indicating her and Sakura. "Everyone is resting, so we shouldn't disturb them."

Naruto nodded, and they went outside into the cool, morning air. Naruto asked about the other's conditions. Shino would be fine and up within a week or so, albeit with a newly squashed nose, and probably little recollection of what had happened; Kiba and Akamaru would be up even sooner, though Akamaru would take a few days longer to fully heal, or so the local vet claimed; Hinata would be bedridden for at least a week, due to a severe concussion and some spinal injuries—nothing major, however; Kylia would need at least a week's rest and constant attention; Benedictus would be able to walk, but just barely—he would have a severe limp for the rest of his life; and Kurenai would be awake in a few hours, probably—Kiba had done a good job protecting her from the worst of it.

Tsuwabuki hung between Kira and Sakura as they trudged towards the castle, which loomed above them. The activity could be heard for miles around, they were sure. Probably the entire Stormwind guard was there, in case another attack occurred. When they reached the gates, three guards came to meet them.

"Lady Kira," said one, bowing quickly. "We have located Lady Tyrande."

Kira awoke immediately. "Where?"

"In the forest outside the city, milady. She is being escorted inside right now. She's injured."

Kira exchanged a horrified glance with Naruto, who went white.

"How bad?" Kira asked.

"She can walk, and speak, or so I'm told," the guard said, his eyes flickering briefly to Naruto's glacial eyes, glimmering with anger. "It is not serious, and she wants to speak with you as soon as she can."

Both Kira and Naruto took off running, where the guard had indicated, Tsuwabuki loping behind them. Sakura lingered.

"Where are the bodies?" she asked.

"Of whom?"

"The attackers," she said.

His face tightened. "The headless one we followed orders as specifically as possible, according to what you and Lady Kira instructed—the body's been burned, and the head's been locked in the lower chambers of the castle…to…um…await interrogation. The other one we burned along with the first."

Kira nodded. "Can I see the ashes?"

He frowned. "Why?"

"I just want to be sure."

He nodded. "Sure. Come along. Should be about finished."

They found Tyrande in the street running down past the infirmary, accompanied by six heavily armored guards. Naruto caught sight of her first, and both he and Tsuwabuki could smell the blood on her, and see how she limped, carrying herself like the victim of a severe beating. Tsuwabuki rushed to her, and Naruto was there a second later, moving far faster than Kira could ever manage to.

"Tyrande-nee-chan!" he cried, skidding to a halt before her, his eyes wide, as he took in her ruined appearance. Her normally immaculately white robes were torn and stained in blood and dirt, and her normally smooth and perfect hair was frizzy and disheveled. To Naruto's horror, a large portion of her bust was visible to the general population, and he quickly sought to rectify it by giving her his jacket. Her eyes were half-glaze with exhaustion, though they cleared some when they stared into Naruto's concerned, desperate eyes.

"Naruto," she said, touching his face. "You made it back…"

"Oi!" Naruto snapped, glaring at the guards, as Kira arrived, panting, beside him. "Why aren't you helping her…!"

"I asked them not to," said Tyrande. "I'm injured, not useless." She ruffled his hair. "I would consider it an insult if they attempted to without my permission."

"Lady Tyrande," said Kira, glancing over her wounds. "We should…"

"Let me sit, that's all I need for now. You're very weak, Kira, it would be foolish to even consider trying to heal me in your state. Just guide me to a place I can sit, in private, please."

Kira nodded, while Naruto took Tyrande by the arm, and obstinately led her along, taking care not to make her trip or fall and giving respect to her injuries, while at the same time completely ignoring her annoyed frown at being helped. Before long, she was smiling, however.

It did not take them long to reach the infirmary, where Kira led them to an empty room, and told Tyrande to sit on the bed while she fetched a few healers. Naruto sat beside her, glaring at the floor, waiting for news as to why she was so injured. She said nothing, and merely stared at the door, but kept her hand firmly placed in Naruto's. Kira returned before long, with two healers. Tyrande was patient as they assessed her, healed the majority of her larger wounds, and then rushed off to bring more supplies. Before they left, they said that Tyrande was no danger of dying or permanent injury—she would be fine. After hearing that, Tyrande told them to wait outside for a while, as she had something private to say to Kira and Naruto. Naruto also demanded that they bring her some fresh clothes.

"They could've…you know…seen your…" he gestured to her chest, mumbling something.

Tyrande raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad my breasts are of such concern to you, Naruto."

"Oi! I'm not a pervert or anything, I was just…!"

"I know," she said, smiling. She glanced at Kira, who was staring with particular concern at Tyrande's breasts now as well, and constantly flitting back to her own. Ah, youth, she thought.

"All that aside," she said. "I have something to speak to you both about."

"Who did that?" Naruto said, with less force than before.

"I do not know," she said. "His race was unknown to me, as was his allegiance. He was a shinobi, however—that much was clear, from the headband he wore. Three peaks, like mountains, or blades of grass."

Naruto knit his brows together. "Hidden Grass," he said. "But why would…" His eyes grew wide. "Was he wearing a cloak? Black, with red clouds and things on it?"

Tyrande nodded.

Kira and Naruto exchanged glances. "Akatsuki," they said.

"Pardon?"

"Did you hear about what happened at the castle?"

"A little, but I still am unclear as to what exactly happened."

Kira told her, as calmly as she could.

"He…they…were completely different," said Tyrande.

"They?" Naruto said.

"Yes, it was unclear to me how many people 'they' were. Two, from what I could tell. But I'll start from the beginning." She paused, and rubbed her arm, biting her lips. Naruto's eyes twitched at the sight of her pain.

"I was in the forest— I was still disturbed by Vol'jin's premonition. I thought there might be something to see, or feel. I did indeed have a bad feeling—though I am no prophetess, I do get feelings of a sort from time to time, much like the Archbishop. I can't say what I was seeking, perhaps nothing, but I was out there. I felt him…before he actually arrived. It was surprising—I cannot say that I have experienced anything like it."

Both Naruto and Kira's brows wrinkled in confusion. For someone over ten thousand years old, it was quite surprising that she had never experienced something in battle.

"He was not a man, but nor was he anything I had ever seen before. He might have been an elemental of sorts, though I cannot say for sure. His appearance—I can't even begin to describe it. He was like a plant and a man in one…his body was half-obscured by a giant, green covering, like the jaws of a snap-plant, while the skin of his actual body was divided—half black and half white with dark spots, and wide, yellow eyes. I was nearly killed by his sudden entrance—he was amazingly skilled. I could not even see how he attacked—as if he had used the forest against me, everything suddenly became dangerous. Every leaf, branch, and pine needle became hazardous. If it were not for my prior training, I would have been slain quickly. I am quite glad for it now."

"So am I," Naruto mumbled. Tyrande smiled.

"How did you stop him?" Kira asked.

"I did not. He escaped. I knew not the reason, but it was clear that to kill me wasn't his mission."

"How'd ya figure?" said Naruto, crossing his arms.

"He did not strike with the lethality his ability seemed to give him; he was almost like a druid, and to fight a druid in the forest is suicide for most. He was most likely meant to distract—I received your message not long after we started fighting. We was sent to deter me from aiding all of you." Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned slightly into Naruto, her breathing becoming more labored.

"You okay?" Naruto mumbled.

"Yes," she said.

"Sure?"

"Of course." She looked at Kira. "His _chakra_ was divided. Not unlike how Naruto's was, when I first met him."

Naruto swallowed. "Then could he be…?"

"His _chakra_ was not demonic. I still do not understand quite how it felt. It was different. But that's how I came to think he was in fact a 'they', and the fact that he seemed to argue with himself on a number of occasions. I got the feeling he fought half-heartedly. He did not intend to kill me, if that had been possible." She shook her head.

"Geez, this is just confusing. What the hell do they want?" Naruto muttered, rubbing his stomach absently. "I thought they were after this…"

"What?"

Naruto looked up at Tyrande. "The Kyuubi. That's what Ero-sennin said they were after."

Tyrande frowned. "What? Why would they be—?"

The door interrupted her, slamming open so hard that the glass window cracked. Sakura was standing there, breathing violently, her entire body shaking. The doctors outside were yelling at her, but she ignored them.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto said, turning. "What's—?"

"He's gone," she said. "The giant Akatsuki member—Kakuzu…he's gone."

* * *

"_**You escaped, eh, Kakuzu? Hehe, where's the other half of the Zombie Twins? You leave the kid behind…? Eh?"**_

"_He must have."_

Kakuzu stood somewhere in the darkest part of the forest, shaking. Where they had been forest around him, there now was not—the trees looked like they'd been torn from the ground by a violent windstorm; they were cracked, bent and broken, some as thick as a man's arm-span. His negative eyes were obsidian daggers, and he was wheezing, growling, like a wild animal.

"Shut up," he snarled.

" _**You failed. He's not going to be happy. Hehe, it's going to be hilarious."**_

"_Very funny."_

"Shut up," he said again.

"_**Lost a heart, did you?"**_

"I'll kill you," he said. "Hidan's easily replaced. So is the heart."

"_**True!"**_

"_Astute observation."_

"There's no point in dying right now. I have other things that I must do, and it doesn't matter if I anger that fool."

"_**You dare to anger a god!"**_

"_It would be…'sacrilegious'"_

"Shut up."

"_**Will you miss him?"**_

"No."

"_Obvious."_

* * *

A day passed. 

Sakura finished adjusting the curtains, so that the lightly shining sun didn't interfere with Kurenai's rest. The window was positioned exactly opposite her bed, and Sakura knew that Kurenai would need as much sleep as she could manage especially with all the drugs she'd been given. Regardless, Kurenai did not appear sleepy—she watched Sakura and Kira work with her large, red eyes. She didn't speak until Sakura had turned and come back over.

"Thank you," said Kurenai. She gave the girl a brief but warm smile.

Sakura smiled back. "No problem." Hers lasted a little longer. "Is there anything else you need?"

Kurenai shook her head, watching Kira now as she went over the few notes the other healers had made about her condition, making addendums and finishing her treatment piece for the day. She was happy—Kurenai was without a doubt going to be fine in a few days, though she would not be able to be a shinobi for a while yet, at least a few years.

"Okay," said Kira, setting the notebook down at the table at the end of Kurenai's bed. "That's all."

"Thank you both," said Kurenai, nodding to them. "You've helped me so much."

Her head rested on her stomach, and both girls felt a small surge of pride.

"Of course," said Kira.

"Like I said, no problem," said Sakura.

"Has anything been heard from Asuma's group, yet?" Kurenai asked, calmly.

Kira paused before answering, trying to keep her face from showing too much obvious concern; she did not want to pity the proud woman. "No," she said. "We'll do our best to keep you as much informed as we can, Miss Kurenai. But I'm sure they're fine. It would take a few days for a message to arrive here anyways, no matter how they sent it. They are in a very dangerous place, as you know."

"Yes," said Kurenai.

"They should be fine," said Sakura. "Ino and Shikamaru are there, and so is Naruto's dwarf friend—they'll be in and out as soon as they can, and they'll be back, all of them."

Kurenai gave her a somewhat sad, knowing smile. "Yes," she said. "I'm sure."

There was silence after that, awkward and tense. Finally, Kira said. "If that's all, miss, we'll take our leave."

"Thank you."

"Get some rest. Somebody will be in later to check on you."

"Yes. I will." She lay back down, as the two girls left the room and her in the quiet gloom.

Neither of them spoke, but both continued along the same path, away towards Stormwind Castle. Both merely took in the sounds of the city, meandering along, unsure exactly what to talk about.

"She wasn't happy," said Kira, calmly. "I would've thought she'd be relieved."

"She is," said Sakura. "But she can't be happy. Not if she's not going to be on active duty for a while."

Kira glanced at her. "Even though she's with child?"

Sakura nodded. "It's our lives. It's hard to give it up, especially for her, I think. Since Asuma's going to be gone on missions all of the time now, it's going to be hard for both of them to cope. I don't think either of them expected this." She shrugged. "What's worse is that Asuma isn't even here to comfort her. I'm really worried about them."

Kira nodded. "As am I. But is it really so hard to be away from battle?"

"It's not so much that," said Sakura. She avoided a group of priests ambling down the street, who bowed to Kira as she passed. "It's more that it's hard to be of no aid to anyone. That's what Kurenai feels she'll become—somebody who can't do anything. Shinobi's lives revolve around being able to do something for others, no matter what it is. But to do nothing is hard for us—for everyone."

"I see," Kira said, giving a small bow to a group of old women gathered by awning of a shop. They bowed back, chuckling amongst themselves.

They reached the castle a few minutes later, but neither of them stopped walking. They kept going past, nodding and bowing to the guards stationed there. Silence pervaded for minutes after, until Sakura broke it by clearing her throat and looking once again at Kira.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," said Kira, meeting her eyes.

"Those books you gave me, did you know they had all of those notes in them?"

Kira blinked. "Oh…yes…" She suddenly looked away, as if embarrassed. As nothing was happening in the street she glanced down, she must have been. For some reason, it made Sakura feel likewise. Silence reigned once again.

"They're…um…pretty personal," said Sakura.

"Are they? I wrote them a long time ago," Kira said. "Forgive me. I didn't think they'd hamper your—"

"It's not that," said Sakura, "I just was surprised. I doubt you'd have shown some of those to even Naruto."

Kira blushed. "I wouldn't have shown any of those to Naruto."

"Ah."

More silence.

"Have you learned many of the techniques?"

Sakura started a bit, lost in thought. "Ah, not all. I've learned a lot of the mending_jutsu_, and several of the detoxifying ones, but only a few attack based ones. I should learn more, though—the _choujouteki himei no jutsu_ seems to work really well."

"You did it well," said Kira.

Sakura smiled. "Thanks. I've been wondering how I could change it, though, using my technique. I might be able to induce specific fears, not just a general panic attack."

"Like specific phobias?"

"Something like that. I don't know how it would be different, but I'd have to test it a bit."

"I see."

Sakura shrugged. "Do you have any recommendations?"

"The _Power Words_ are really useful," said Kira. "They'll help enormously."

"Sounds good."

"Do you think you'd be able to help me with a few potions? You seem to know a lot about them."

"It's what Tsunade-sama taught me instead of healing jutsu, since she said it's harder to get from a book."

"That's definitely true," said Kira. "Benedictus rarely does it, and I've had only minor training in it even working at the infirmary, since they rarely have time to focus on just teaching me."

Sakura nodded. "Of course. It's tricky only because you have to very precise and have good timing; in the field, that's especially hard, so you just have to work at it."

"Right."

Sakura then turned back to inspecting the walls of the castle, as they walked down the street beside it. They turned left, deeper into the city, having no particular aim.

"I never thanked you, by the way," said Kira, calmly. "With everything that happened after, it slipped my mind."

"For what?"

"For saving me, back there," said Kira, glancing at her. "You did—I would have died if you had not jumped in and I do not think I would have been able to beat him without you. Thank you, Sakura."

Sakura blushed pink, and nodded. "No problem. You probably would've done the same for me. I guess it's just something Naruto rubs off on you—jumping into the fray to save somebody with no thought for yourself, you know?"

Kira smiled.

"Yes. I do."

* * *

"Geez, I can't believe I'm stuck in one of these places, again," said Kiba, sighing loudly and shifting on the bed to a more comfortable position. He glared across the room at Naruto, who was mangling an apple for Hinata, much to the girl's joyful embarrassment. He'd been constantly appearing in and out of the infirmary for the past two days, checking on everyone's condition and killing time. He'd sent word to Kakashi using a bat summon, but he'd heard nothing back yet. Rather than be a nuisance, however, he'd been quite helpful to his ailing friends—something that none of them could reconcile with how Naruto used to have been; Kiba kept commenting on how surprising it was that Naruto hadn't yet cut his finger off trying to peel an apple. 

"Oi! You'd probably give it to your dog to peel for you, dumbass!" Naruto snapped, tossing a huge chunk of the poor fruit into the bin and then, deciding it was satisfactory, cut it up and put it in the bowl next to him, which he handed to Hinata. "Here."

"T-t-t-t-thank you, N-Naruto-kun," she said.

"No problem," he said.

"Why are you helping us out, anyways?" Kiba said. "We're not cripples."

"Sakura-chan said I should stop being an nuisance and try and help out. I dunno how to heal, so I'm doing stuff I know how to do."

"Doesn't look like you know how to cut an apple, moron."

"Least I can walk, dog-breath."

Kiba twitched, but fell silent. Naruto glanced over across the room, where Shino lay, face-up in bed. He seemed asleep, but Naruto could see that his eyes were open.

"You okay, Shino?"

"Fine," he said.

"Do you think that nurse is coming back soon?" Kiba said, to no one in particular. "Do you think if I ask her for a sponge-bath she'd give it to me?"

"Wouldn't want to treat Hinata to that sight, would you?" Naruto said, rolling his eyes. Hinata turned red, but stifled a few giggles. Then she remembered, and turned with an uneasy face to Naruto.

"Is Kurenai-sensei alright, Naruto-kun? Have you seen h-her today?"

"Sakura-chan's with her, but she says she's gonna be fine. I haven't seen her yet much, though. I haven't yet said congratulations to her about the baby."

"Idiot," said Kiba. "That's the first thing you're supposed to do!"

"I-I think y-you should wait a bit, N-Naruto-kun," Hinata said, softly. "I-I don't know if Kurenai-sensei will like hearing a-about that so s-soon."

Naruto looked at her for a while, which made her flush even brighter.

"Yeah," said Naruto, finally. "Guess you're right. She's probably still a bit sore about not being able to be a shinobi for a while."

"Have you heard anything from the other group?" Shino said, still lying prone on the bed so that his voice seemed oddly distant.

"No," said Naruto. He sighed, and glanced out the window. "But I hope they do soon. I'm getting a bit worried."

"Didn't think you got worried," said Kiba. "I thought idiots lived in the present."

Instead of answering, Naruto stood and began to dance, moving across the room to the edge of Kiba's bed, hopping and moving his feet in a sort of jig, his arms held out before him each hand gripping the opposite arm just above the elbow. He hummed as he did it.

Both Kiba and Hinata stared at him in confusion, snorting a few times, until Naruto said, "Look, Kiba, I can dance! Wanna join me? Oh…wait…"

Kiba's eye twitched again. "Bastard."

Naruto grinned at him. "Dog-boy."

Hinata was unable to stop herself from laughing, even a little, and even Shino was quietly chuckling in the corner, despite being in the very same situation as Kiba. Kiba shrunk away, defeated, muttering something about ungrateful team members until Hinata stopped and apologized between giggles, while Shino just kept on chuckling.

Naruto finally moved towards the door. "Alright, I'm gonna go check on Kylia and Benedictus-_jiisan_. Maybe they'll have heard something more about the others, or have some good information."

"Sorry for being such a bore," said Kiba, rolling his eyes.

Naruto grinned at him. "I forgive you."

"S-see you later, Naruto-kun," said Hinata, giving him a little nod.

"Take care," said Shino.

"See you guys later," Naruto said, flashing them both wide smiles before leaving the room. The hallway was only slightly busier than the previous days, as Naruto made a practiced route through it, hardly looking where he was going. Kylia and Benedictus' room was at the far end of the hallway, next to Kurenai's; he thought about visiting the young sensei, but upon listening at her door as he passed, he heard nothing inside, and decided it was best to let her rest. Every time he passed her room, it amazed him how lucky she was, and how relieved he was that she was okay.

He could hear voices in Benedictus' room, so he casually let himself in. The room was smaller than Kiba, Hinata and Shino's, but there were only two beds in it, as opposed to the four in the last one. Kira sat beside Kylia's, performing the same act of kindness he had for Hinata a few minutes ago, although she did it far better than him, the apple peal being a long connected spiral, whereas his had been broken up and covered in chunks of apple. Tsuwabuki lay at the edge of the bed, and stood up when he entered, padding over to him. Benedictus, just across from Kylia, was sitting up in bed, staring out the window until Naruto shut the door.

"Yo!" he said.

"Hello, Naruto," said Kira, smiling at him. "How are they?"

"Good," he said. "Kiba should be out soon, once he gets feeling back in his legs, though. The other two seem fine."

"Old man," Naruto said. "Has he been found yet?"

"Of course not," said Benedictus. "He's a dead man, you can only find his body, if he's dead."

"So have they found his body?"

"No." Benedictus shook his head. "We haven't even found all of the body parts from those guards who attempted to burn him. I am deeply concerned about this situation, Kira. What exactly do these people want?"

"That's obvious," said Kira. "To destroy the alliance."

"But _why?_"

"I don't know," she said.

"Precisely," said Benedictus. "Which is exactly the problem we are faced with. There is so little we know about this little group…"

"They may not be little," said Kira. She glanced at Naruto. "Right?"

Naruto nodded. "Kakashi-sensei and Ero-sennin both said that they're pretty big in our world, so they might only have nine or so main members, but they're definitely bigger than that. Probably have lots of contacts. But we don't even know how they got here or even how big their influence is here."

"All extraordinarily dangerous problems, and if they possess any number of members as strong as those two, it will be a definite problem in the future. We do not even know why they seek to undo what we have done, what their ultimate desire is."

"Master," said Kira, handing Kylia the finished and perfectly cut apple, though the girl didn't eat it. "Naruto mentioned that they might have a headquarters in Hillsbrad. They might have more, across the continent, maybe even across the world."

"If they do, they hide them well," said Benedictus. "I know of no one who has heard anything of these black-cloaked shinobi; it would seem to me that they would be very distinctive, especially if the majority of their members are human—or something resembling them, anyways. We must look for patterns. We must discover what their aim is."

Naruto could see the fire in his eyes stoked by the prospect. "Now? What about everything else?"

"No, not now," said Benedictus. "There are more pressing things, though I don't deny that a number of them could be tied to this. But let's discuss something else, for a moment. The attack on Southshore."

Naruto stiffened. He averted his eyes briefly, letting them fall to the ground. Kira glanced at him worriedly.

"This means that now the Scourge has allies in your world," Benedictus said.

"Yeah…" said Naruto.

"And you know of them?"

"If Sasuke was there…"Naruto said calmly, "…then it has to be Orochimaru."

"Tell me of him."

"He was a part of Akatsuki once, or at least that's what Ero-sennin told me," he said. "Which means that he probably knew all about this world before I even heard of him—but I dunno what he's playing at, joining the Scourge. Even he wouldn't be _that_ stupid, so he couldn't have known much about it…he just doesn't seem like the type to take orders from anyone, which makes me wonder if he joined it willingly or not."

"I see," said Benedictus. His eyes had glazed over in concentration. He stared at his lap in bed, and stroked his white beard, which he had at some point forgotten to trim, because it spilled over his chin like an avalanche of wavy white snow, carrying with it debris of bread and cheese, the remainder of which could be seen on his bedside table.

"What is most troubling about this news is that the Scourge has become more active. If they are making for the other worlds as well, then this poses a definite problem. Who knows what could happen if they spill into your world, as unsuspecting as they are." He glanced at Kira, who was standing near the end of Kylia's bed now, concerned.

"Master," she said, calmly.

"What?"

"Wipe your mouth, please, and lie back. You're in no condition to be discussing this sort of thing."

He glared at her shrewdly. "Coddling me doesn't work, girl. Your mother tried, and failed." Even so, he began to pick out the bits of food and eat them, all the while lying back.

"Naruto," Kira said, turning to him. "Could you make a message and send it to Lady Tsunade? She must know about this."

"Sakura-chan already mentioned it," said Naruto. "I did it before I left the castle today."

She nodded. "We'll go there now. I'd like to talk with that head."

Benedictus jolted up in bed. "You are not—!"

"Yes I am," said Kira, calmly. "We have to make him talk, if only to answer at least some of our questions. We can do nothing about the other situations now, so why not do what we can?"

"I would like to be there," he said.

Naruto stared at him. The old man had a passion quite unaccustomed to the boy, a fire in his eyes that Naruto didn't like, and neither did Kira, apparently.

"No. You can't. You'd just shout at each other, and we'd get nowhere." Kira turned, and walked to the door, beside Naruto. "Master, I'll talk to the deathmaster. He wants to know the arrangements of Lord Coutrend's funeral."

"I see," said Benedictus, his face closing like the shutter of a window. "Why ask me?"

"Apparently he wanted you to preside over it. His will dictates that he didn't trust his relatives enough to make it decent."

"Ah," said Benedictus, lying back. "I see."

Kira watched him, saying nothing.

"I shall. Set a date agreeable for my recovery."

"Okay." She then turned, and smiled at Naruto. "Let's go, Naruto. I'll see you Kylia, later today, and you too Master."

Despite Benedictus' annoyed harrumph, they left the room and went out into the bright sun. The air was still cold, uncommonly so, and Naruto commented on it.

"Does it not get so cold where you come from?"

"It snows sometimes," said Naruto, with a shrug. "But only for like a month or so. Otherwise, it just gets pretty cold for a while. But not during the season we have now."

"So the seasons between our world's are in different alignment then?" Kira said, nodding.

"Yeah." Naruto glanced at the sky.

'_**Why does it matter?'**_ Tsuwabuki said to Naruto.

"It doesn't," he said aloud. "It's just weird to think about." He knew he was probably confusing Kira, but she was used to hearing him talk to Tsuwabuki as if he were insane. They fell silent for a while, before Naruto spoke again.

"I'm worried about them. They haven't even sent anything."

She glanced at him. "Are you really worried? I would've thought you had a lot of confidence in them."

"I do!" said Naruto, looking slightly affronted. "But that doesn't stop me from worrying, you know?"

"You never used to say that, though," she said. "You're changing."

Naruto shrugged. "We all gotta,"

Kira nodded, slowing a bit as they walked. "I suppose so."

"But that being said," she continued, "I'm worried as well. As difficult as this mission is, they should've contacted us by now, at least, if they were on their way back. But at this moment, there's nothing we can do. I'm also worried about Yamato. Do you think he and Sai have managed to find out anything from the hideout?"

"Probably," said Naruto. "They're efficient. They'll find something."

She nodded. "Perhaps we should've invited Sakura as well."

Naruto glanced at her, wondering what the seemingly off-hand comment really meant. He had quickly learned that sometimes when girls said things about other girls, they seemed innocent, but really weren't. At least that's how it worked with Sakura-chan, sometimes. "You think?"

"Maybe."

"Isn't she with Kurenai-sensei?"

"Yes, but it's mostly diagnostics that she's running, that any healer could."

"It's probably better if Sakura-chan did them then," said Naruto, with a shrug. "At least for Kurenai-sensei."

Kira nodded, seeming a little pleased by his answer, in a way that he couldn't pinpoint. Her face didn't change, she just _seemed_ happier, and he guessed it was something that only girls could manage, being the subtle creatures—Jiraiya's words for it—that they were.

The guards greeted them at the entrance to the castle, and one of them led them across the lawn, around the white-stepped walkway that usually led to the castle entrance, but was being cleaned of the dark bloodstains of the former guardsmen. Kira felt a pang as she watched the cleaners work, scrubbing heartily at the dark-brown and black stains, now faded against the white stone. She had yet to promote a new captain; but the service for Captain Eric had not yet been held. Hollowness rang throughout her when she remembered she'd never see the cheerful, diligent young man again. She'd never see his smile again.

She found Naruto staring at her in concern with his wide blue eyes. He touched her shoulder, and smiled a little. It cheered her.

The guard took them down, deeper than Naruto had ever been in the castle, even deeper than the tram station. They were taken down a winding staircase that never seemed to end, so narrow that it only fit one person, just barely. When they finally reached the bottom, there was a torch burning beside the entrance, which the guard took and led them down a dank, dirty passage to an iron door sealed with chains. Two guards stood on each side.

"My lady," the guard that had led them said, bowing to Kira. "If you please."

The other two moved aside as Kira walked forwards, and made a quick seal, pressing her palm against the door. Runes sprang into being, and began to unravel, and with a hollow clang, the door unlocked and one of the guards opened it, letting Kira and Naruto in.

"Fucking hell…you guys…shit…the…fuck…"

The voice, slurred and hoarse from overuse, drifted across the short chamber from the head suspended above a large tub, half-full of dark blood, bound in mid-air by three chains and hooks. Hidan's skin was paler and more emaciated than ever, the blood that was somehow constantly dripping from his head, draining his life away into the iron tub he was hug above. He looked more like the force he had idolized for most of his life than ever. He blinked his dry, bleeding eyes a few times, gazing at the two as they entered. He winced as the door clanged shut.

"The fuck…you doin' here, eh?" he said.

"We've come to talk," said Kira, calmly.

Tsuwabuki uttered a growl. Hidan merely glared at her.

"'Bout what?"

"Akatsuki," said Naruto, stepping forwards.

"Shit outta luck," said Hidan. "I ain't talkin'."

"Why not?" Kira said. "You have no choice anymore. And they won't be coming back for you."

"Yeah?"

"You don't have a body," Naruto pointed out. "Won't be much good to them, you know?"

Hidan laughed. "The world's…a big…mysterious place, you know? There's a lot out there…you guys…don't know about…. Point is…there's a lot that could happen. I could…get my body back…like that. Nothing's always as certain…as it seems…dumbasses."

'_**I'd like to chew on his ears,'**_ Tsuwabuki said. '_**May I?'**_

"Maybe later," said Naruto, off-handedly. "So you're gonna bet on that?"

"You're going to die eventually," said Kira, calmly.

"It'll take fucking years to kill me," said Hidan, with a wide, ailing grin. "And even if you destroy my body…I'll find…other ways…"

Naruto drew up close to the hanging head, frowning. Kira hung back, but continued to speak.

"So what's the point of not talking? There's nothing left for you here. Do you really think they'll actually come back?"

"Of…course…not…!" Hidan laughed. "You…fuckin'…serious? That bastard…he'll fuckin' forget I exist in a while…so will fuckin' Kakuzu…"

"What bastard?" Naruto said, leaning close. Hidan tried to snap at the boy's face, but Naruto didn't so much as flinch away. Annoyed by this, Hidan spat some blood onto Naruto's cheek, finally making the boy draw back in disgust.

"Gross," he mumbled. "What bastard are you talking about, you stupid head?"

"Fine…" said Hidan, grinning. "Who do you think?"

Naruto twitched. "Oi, we aren't—!"

"The leader…" said Kira, calmly.

Naruto started in surprise, glancing back at her. Hidan just looked annoyed.

"Used your little…mind…tricks…huh…bitch?" he said. "Fine…yeah…the Leader…"

"Who is he?" said Kira.

"Fuck…if I…I know…" Hidan grunted, his eyes glazing a little as exhaustion began to claim him. "All I know is…you're fucked…he's so much stronger…than any of you…hehe…he'll fuck over anybody…who even tries…to beat him or…his ambition…that much I know…Not even that fucker…the Lich King…will ever…ever…be able to…defeat…a fuckin' god…" At that, Hidan burst out into a fit of wheezy laughter, spraying blood from his neck wound and mouth and making more drip from his eyes. It soon turned into coughing, and then silence, as Hidan just glared at them both, his face now soaked in unnatural red.

"He's a god…?" Kira said, softly.

"Fuck…" said Hidan. "Gods don't talk to people…this guy never shuts the fuck up…" He laughed. "God…that's a fuckin'…laugh…" He laughed again. Anything must be funny in that situation, Naruto thought.

"Where do we find this guy?" Naruto asked.

"Fuck you…"

"Better answer, or I'm gonna use your head for a football."

'_**May I have his tongue?'**_

"Fuck you…"

Naruto grit his teeth, fully ready to let Tsuwabuki act on her urges. Kira stepped up beside him, and said. "You don't know, do you?"

"Fuck you…"

"He doesn't know," said Kira, glancing sideways at Naruto. "We won't get much more out of him. I doubt he even knows who this man is…" She glanced back at him. Hidan's eyes had closed, and he did not speak again. Because he had no body, it was impossible to tell if he was still alive or had just been bluffing the entire time.

"What'd we do?" he asked.

"I don't think we can do anything, at least right now. We should tell Benedictus, but other than that…"

Naruto nodded.

They left Hidan, still spilling his blood, in darkness.

* * *

Sakura stepped out of Kurenai's bedroom just in time to nearly crash into a tired, hurried man clutching a small piece of paper, which flew into the air at her sudden entrance into the hallway of the infirmary. 

"I'm sorry," she said, quickly, reaching for the paper. The man, however, snatched it up and ignored her, belting for Benedictus' room and entering without so much as a knock. Frowning, she quickly shut Kurenai's door as softly as she could and she hurried to Benedictus room, which the man had left open in his hurry. She caught immediately onto what he was saying, although he was in the middle of his explanation.

"…delivered by a wyvern-rider earlier today, an orc! From the Badlands, he says, near the Burning Steppes, the fort of Kargath! Got a message for you, and Lady Kira, and a few others whose names I can't remember but I…"

"Quiet," said Benedictus, waspishly. "Read it."

The man nodded, and hurriedly took it out. He stuttered a start, and began.

"'_Benedictus-sama, this is Nara Shikamaru, of the party sent to Blackrock to fetch the Princess Moira and her son, Thauraan. I'm pleased to inform you that our mission has been accomplished. We have informed the Dwarven kingdom of this as well. They will be sending someone to pick him up_.'"

Sakura let out a sigh of relief. They were alive. They'd done it. She was smiling, even as the message continued.

"'_But we regret to inform you that we will not be returning so soon. We have important business to take care of, which warrants our staying here. I have included a coded message for one of our comrades to translate, as it concerns them more. We hope to see you in the future, and thank you for all your help.'_"

The man finished, holding up the other piece of paper. Sakura immediately stepped forwards, taking it from him without words. It wasn't a hard code to crack—it had probably been thrown together in under a few minutes, most likely just so that the messengers wouldn't be able to read it, and she doubted that many codes were used in this world; so far as she knew, cryptography, specifically shinobi cryptography, did not exist.

She swept to the side of Kylia's bed, while the messenger was shunted from the room by Benedictus' cold snarls and Kylia looked on calmly. Sakura deciphered the code in under a few minutes; but she was only able to write the first word down before her eyes grew wide and she dropped her pen in surprise. She could not even utter a sound, staring at the seemingly meaningless symbols, and the awful news they bore.

'_Gai's dead. We're staying behind to destroy the ones responsible. Might need aid, please come as soon as you can.'_

* * *

"You're back…" Tsunade said, staring as Jiraiya leapt off the windowsill onto the carpeted floor of her office, looking ragged and annoyed and smelling as if he had slogged through mud and trash for a dozen miles before bathing in a pig sty. The hermit dropped the huge scroll he always carried onto the floor and stretched, ignoring her for a moment (which for him, was slightly unnerving, since even when they had important business he usually kept at least one eye trained on her breasts), as he shrugged off the rest of his baggage and then prostrated himself across the couch, sighing. It was a bright day, with no clouds in the sky, yet Jiraiya looked like a emotional teenager staring out the window as rain fell in a light, depressing drizzle, keeping his eyes trained on the ceiling. He seemed lost in thought, and didn't immediately even acknowledge the Hokage, who was by then getting rather annoyed at his lack of responsiveness. 

"What are you doing back for? I thought you'd gone to get more information on Akatsuki?" Tsunade said, raising one eyebrow. She stood up and circled around the desk, leaning against it as she watched him. He didn't answer for a moment.

"I did, but there's nothing," said Jiraiya, shrugging.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "So you're mad your information network failed you, are you? Deal with it. It's not like I expected you to find much anyways. We'll just have to find something else to—"

"Your faith in me is dazzling," said Jiraiya, with only half the amount of sarcasm as he usually would have. "But you don't understand. It's not the fact that I didn't get any information—in fact, I got plenty."

"What about?"

"A few of my informants agreed on the same thing," said Jiraiya. "That Akatsuki, in addition to having numerous temporary bases, much like Orochimaru seems to, does still have a main base of operations. Up until a few weeks ago, while you were still gone, that hadn't changed, but I soon got wind that there was an anomaly in this information."

"Anomaly? In what way?"

"There was a point of concurrence—Akatsuki were mostly seen in and around the Rain Country, and since it's such a rare event for anyone to actually leave the Rain Country due to their civil war, I thought this odd, especially since if they had entered the Rain Country, it was not for a _Jinchuuriki_. They have none. So, naturally, I thought it odd. It was only recently, when I left to check them again, that they told me some juicy information—that whoever leads Akatsuki, might in fact be based within the Hidden Rain."

"What?" said Tsunade. "How's that possible?"

"That they're in the Hidden Rain, or that my informers found out?"

"Both."

"Well, they found out because they're my informers—they gather lots of data, and they're very mathematical about it, using all sorts of weird triangulation techniques that I don't understand, as well as numerous eyewitness reports and they're not above stealing records from other Hidden Villages and well—"

"I get the point. So you came back here to get help?"

Jiraiya blinked at her. "Get help? Why would I do that?"

"Because it'd be smart?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "There's no need. I already checked it out."

Tsunade gaped. "You what—?"

"Forget what you're about to say," said Jiraiya. "Because I've got a question that's been bugging me since I left."

Tsunade ground her teeth, but nodded. "Go."

"How does an entire village disappear?"

Tsunade felt as if she had not quite heard. "Pardon?"

"How does an entire village, one that we've been to ourselves, that we've seen with our own eyes and thus know exists, just vanish—as in, 'poof' disappear. It's completely gone. There's nothing left of the Hidden Rain, just empty space, just…nothing."

"That's impossible. It was probably—"

"It wasn't_genjutsu_," said Jiraiya. "You're talking to somebody who knows two of the best _genjutsushi_ in the world, but there's still nothing. Nothing at all. No _chakra_, not anything. I even patrolled the entire area. There don't seem to be any Rain shinobi left. I went back to my informers and asked them when the last sighting of a Rain shinobi was—it was sometime around the last_chuunin exams_, right before we knew that Akatsuki was active once again." He raked a hand through his shaggy, dirty hair, and once again let his eyes drift up, towards the covered sky.

"So tell me, O wise one, how the hell does a village just disappear without anyone knowing it?"

Tsunade stared at him a moment.

"Hmph. Fuck if I know."

* * *

Long chapter, but equally long wait. Yes, I know it doesn't contain much action—but then again, you guys have been wanting a restful chapter for some time, and It's only natural that I give what you ask for :) Hope you enjoyed it, and it wasn't too much talking for you, and it was something to think about. A lot is happening in this chapter, even if it isn't readily apparent.

The last bit wasn't intended for this chapter, but I tacked it on for more as a hint than anything. Obviously, it's going to nowhere near canon accuracy, but then again, neither is my Leader. He's going to be quite different from the canon version, as you'll soon see.

I wanted this chapter out before I go, so don't expect much from me until after the 30th of January—I'll be taking my last exam and then heading off to Morocco for the first week of break, and I don't think I'll be able to get any writing done there—plenty of planning, but no actual writing. Hope you guys have enjoyed the New Year as much as I!

See you guys soon!

General Grievous

**Scroll of Seals:**

_Choujouteki Himei no jutsu (Psychic Wail Technique): _Invented in Azeroth, extremely effective in clearing away groups of enemies without harming them or distracting them long enough to do some damage. Only works for those with a weak amount of will.


	30. Myself am Hell

Disclaimer: _For the Last Time, I do not own Naruto or World of Warcraft or any of the characters that they contain, though I have made my own and that's the important thing. Now, which part of this isn't true? _

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto_!

* * *

It took less than fifteen minutes for Naruto and Kira to arrive in Benedictus' room, where Sakura and a handful of soldiers stood, awaiting them anxiously. When Sakura had finished telling them the news, only Naruto stood back, shaken to his soul.

"Dead?" he blurted. "Mega Fuzzy-Brows is dead?"

"Yes. I've looked it over a dozen times, it definitely says what I think it says."

"Who?" Naruto said, suddenly furious. His eyes darkened, almost reddened, and the air seemed to heat up with his anger. "Who would…?"

"It doesn't say," said Sakura. "Though we can guess. We have to get there as soon as we can, they need reinforcements."

"I'll call Matthias," said Naruto, digging around in his jacket. "He'll get us there quickly."

Benedictus suddenly cleared his throat. Naruto ignored it, but Sakura turned to look at him.

"I would not act so rashly," said Benedictus. "They seem to be doing this against better judgment. I would advise you not to make the same mistake."

"Shut it, old man," Naruto snapped. "This is our problem."

Kira blinked at Naruto, and then looked back at Benedictus. The old man's eyes were dark.

"He's right Naruto," said Kira, calmly. "Call Matthias, but please calm down. This isn't the time to act foolishly." She held her ground, even when he cast his hardened eyes on her. But they softened quickly, and he gave a nod, falling silent. He fished out the small device that would contact Matthias and activated it, and then went and sat down.

Sakura just shook her head, her eyes still wide, but said nothing. She went and sat by Naruto, and the room fell uneasily silent. Everyone watched the two shinobi as they comprehended their friend's death, and Kira of all of them wanted to do something, but still had no idea what. In the end she went and sat on Naruto's other side, simply watching him and Sakura. The two shinobi showed no emotion other than astonishment, which faded into brooding, emotionless silence.

"I'm sorry," Kira finally said, her eyes falling to the floor in front of her.

Naruto shrugged, but didn't answer. Sakura didn't even move.

The day didn't last, and most of it was spent like this, simply sitting there in Benedictus' room, in absolute silence. Nobody spoke, and every movement went unnoticed, until Kira put a hand on Naruto's shoulder, and left it there.

Matthias responded quicker than they had imagined he would. He arrived that night, just as the sun plunged beneath the fiery horizon, touching down just outside the gates of the city, where the zeppelin tower lay.

But the first person who greeted them when they went up the gangplank to the familiar zeppelin was not who they imagined, either. Rather than the overly competitive captain of the _Hindenborough,_ it was their teacher, Hatake Kakashi. Matthias had apparently been making an unsavory delivery of unsavory objects to one of Southshore's brothels when he had discovered news of the attack. Kakashi had informed of what had happened, and then had expressed a desire to return to Stormwind as soon as possible, after leaving two _Kage Bunshin_ to oversee the town's recovery and sending a dog to inform Yamato and Sai of what had happened. They had then made full haste back to Stormwind, just passing the Wetlands when Matthias had received Naruto's summon.

The news created no change in Kakashi's condition, even for those who knew him. There was but a slight widening of his visible eye, followed by a curt nod, but he made no move to leave the zeppelin.

Kira, Tyrande and a group of soldiers saw them off.

"I'll stay," said Kira, standing on the deck in her final meeting with Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi. "I'll try and meet with the dwarves, once they have retrieved their new king, and I'll send more messages to Thrall, and try and see if I can get more out of that Akatsuki member."

"Don't overwork yourself," Naruto warned.

She smiled. "Come back safe, okay?"

Naruto grinned. "Promise."

They stood awkwardly, and then Kira stepped forward and hugged him. He fell into the embrace a little more easily than usual, which Sakura noticed, but would not mention later. Tyrande hugged him as well.

"It seems our times together are always so short," she said.

Naruto gave a little shrug. "Guess so, but you know, we'll probably be seeing each other more and more, you know, especially with what is happening. You stay safe, okay?"

"I shall, but you must take more care; I have a bad feeling of what might happen, and if you are about to face what I think you might, then you'll need much more than simple strength and a little guile. You might be facing a beast older than time, if that is truly whom is responsible for your friend's death."

Naruto's eyes grew hard, and his mouth curved into a vicious grin.

"Doesn't matter. The bastard's gonna fall, no matter what."

* * *

Tucked within a small canyon at the foot of the mountains that separated the Badlands from the Burning Steppes, which was more like an indentation in said mountains rather than a proper canyon, the outpost of Kargath was inhabited by only ten rough-looking orc soldiers who were rather unfriendly, as the first thing they did when his group arrived was fire at them. While not uncommon, it was a bit strange given Kira and Naruto's recent alliance. Stranger still was that after Shikamaru's group had managed to disable the attackers in an efficient and unviolent manner, the orcs had backed off and hadn't gone near them since, not even to spit at them or insult them; they just avoided them like one avoided lepers. The orcs had let them into the city and had even taken a message that Shikamaru had written by wyvern to Stormwind. Otherwise they just grumbled and ignored them, which was certainly not in character with the ferocity they seemed to be capable of, and their apparent indifference to the standing alliance.

Their leader was an ancient, battle-scarred orc named Lorog, with tusks as long as a troll's growing from his mouth, which hung open enough for a near-constant stream of drool to dribble out, making it not only difficult to converse with him, but difficult to stand in his presence without feeling a humor quite unaccustomed to the present situation. The orc was dangerous though, or appeared to be, yet he accepted Shikamaru's group in after hearing their story with very little resistance, and no more hostility than he seemed to show the rest of his comrades.

The visitors intrigued the residents of Kargath as much as terrified them. Their first reaction had been, of course, to attack, but not because of a hatred for humans and dwarves—they certainly had them, for most of them were veterans of the last war and had been sent to Kargath merely because they were either too old to function in a standing army or had been involved in "questionable activities" a few two many times for Thrall's comfort. Kargath had become place to send those that weren't meant to see much action, especially since Thrall's attention was more often than not on the other side of the world.

Their reason for letting Shikamaru's group in was as the state of the outpost seemed to suggest—boredom.

Everyone's first impression was that the place stunk. Rotten meat littered the ground before the walled entrance, some nothing more than black and green piles sprouting miniature forests, others still attracting flies which added a chilling buzz to the entire area. Because the creatures that existed in the Badlands that were good enough to eat were all the size of horse-drawn carriages or larger, and the number of residents was so startlingly low, and while they were so bored they had grown so lazy that they did not even bother to exercise proper refrigeration techniques suitable for the climate, they simply left excess meat on the borders of the outpost, using it to attract hungry predators and scavengers so that they could have nice targets to practice their aim on. On the plus side, they were one of the richest outposts in the former Horde, due to the trading agreement they had with a local tribe of ogres, whom they sold the skins to.

"Thank you," Shikamaru said, four days after they had arrived, after the meal had been served, in the single large hut that occupied the center of the outpost, closest to the cliff walls. Surrounding it were a few other shacks, mostly used for weapon storage and grain supplies, though some were empty, or had fallen into a state of disrepair that none of the soldiers could fix, for they simply couldn't be bothered.

The orc leader, Lorog, grunted, "Fer what?"

"Letting us stay here."

"Thought it best not ta' interfere."

Shikamaru frowned. "Interfere with what?"

"All of you," the orc said, tearing a piece of meat from a thick chunk of what was probably a cross-section of a thunder lizard's leg. "You came in here lookin' pretty fierce, I'll tell you, brat. Never seen somethin' like that in a human. Also, you got a smell about you."

"Smell?"

"You been in the burning lands," the orc growled. "And don't think for a moment that we didn't hear what was happening, didn't dread it with everything we had. Been a long time coming, that war."

"You knew of it?"

"Course," Lorog said. "It's all we know about 'round here."

"How come Lord Thrall, or any other members of the alliance, did not warn us of the additional dangers?"

"He didn' know. We don't tell everythin' to the Warchief, you know. He'd want to get involved, 'specially after Blackhand's attack a couple years back. We thought it a better idea not to get 'im involved, if you see what I mean. We're bored, true, but not stupid, nor suicidal, you hear?" He took a long draught from the tankard he had, made from the horn of an ogre. "But you guys, you had somethin' in your eyes, and I could feel somethin' about you that made me think twice about trying to take you on, too. Especially when you told me to send those messages. You got somethin' in mind, and I don' want any part o' it. Just do what ye need to do and leave us be."

That seemed to be the general consensus of Kargath's residents. Even the dogs they kept whimpered when one of the humans passed, the lingering smell of dragon and the deep darkness of Molten Core clinging to them, a stigma to the bored yet cautious residents of the little outpost.

They dealt with it, of course, and waited, recovering, planning. They spent most of the time clustered in one of the empty storage sheds from when Kargath had been a more prosperous outpost, using whatever knowledge Undrig and Thauraan had of the Blackrock Mountains to plan an attack on the Spire, where Nefarian undoubtedly lay.

"I want to go," Thauraan said, for the fifth time that day. "I want—"

"You have to realize," said Shikamaru, softly, "that you'll be no help, Thauraan."

"Yes, but…"

"The best thing you can do," Shikamaru said, "is stay here, and wait for the dwarves to come get you. That's where you're needed now."

"But…!"

"Keep in mind, you'll be helping us as well," said Asuma, leaning against the dusty wood wall, smoking a makeshift cigarette that he had lifted off one of the soldiers. "Not everything is right in Ironforge. There's somebody who betrayed your grandfather in it, and we need you to find out whom."

"How?" Thauraan pressed.

Asuma shrugged. Shikamaru grinned at him. "We're sure you'll find a way."

Though not completely convinced, Thauraan stopped asking, falling into a deep silence while the others talked of the way they could attack.

"We should wait until the others get here before deciding anything," said Ino. "Sakura'll have a handful of ideas as well, and so might Kakashi-sensei."

"You do realize that Kakashi will contest this decision, don't you?" Asuma said.

"You'll need to—" Shikamaru began, but stopped when Asuma shook his head, taking a long drag before he answered.

"No, that'll be your job."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not entirely convinced myself on this issue. It's stupid, Shikamaru, and you know it."

Shikamaru winced inwardly, but showed nothing outwardly. The others were looking at him, probably wondering if he did actually know it.

"Maybe," said Shikamaru. "But that doesn't mean we're not going to do it. Asuma-sensei, you have to feel something for this, I mean, Gai was—"

"Gai died to save you all," said Asuma. "Where's the sense in going to your deaths? If you look at it like a game of _shogi_, Shikamaru, you have to admit it's like sending a handful of pawns to checkmate a king in the middle of your opponent's board, when they have nearly all the pieces protecting it. It's more often than not, impossible. Beforehand, I doubt you would have even considered this plan. So tell me, what's changed?"

Shikamaru had no answer. He remained silent.

Neji had joined their discussion only recently, his eyes having taken time to heal. But using the stocked herbs and her own knowledge of medical _ninjutsu_, Ino had managed to repair the damage done by healing the burns on Neji's expansive retina, which luckily would have only blocked his forward vision. He was grateful, but in his typical fashion, did not make it known. He recommended scouting missions before they did anything, a point Shikamaru took to heart, even if he had no idea how to exercise it. The Burning Steppes were completely gone; Nefarian's battle had torn them apart, leaving nothing but a hole and miles of rubble and destruction. All that remained would be the Blackrock Mountains themselves, and the Spire.

"The red one worries me," Undrig growled. "Dunno wha' tha' was doin' there."

"The red dragon we saw?" Shikamaru said. "What about it?"

"Reds and Blacks don't mix," said Undrig. "The Black Dragonfligh' 'ave always been the Red Dragonfligh's biggest enemy, an' I don' know how the Blacks managed to get that Red one there. He was dangerous, to be sure, you could feel 'is power, couldn' ye?"

"But he let us live," Shikamaru said.

"Confuses me too, but I don' think we should coun' on that again. He'll be our enemy, probably as bad as Nefarian."

"Why were they enemies?" Neji spoke up from the corner. His eyes were closed, still sensitive to light, but he still gave the impression that he was looking right at you.

"Stories say Deathwing, Nefarian's ol' father, betrayed the Dragonflights and attempted ta' control them. Dunno why, or how, but that made them enemies of all the Dragonflights, specially the Red, 'cause they're the leaders o' the rest. Deathwing's gone now, but his kids 'ave been causin' trouble for this world since—you heard about the attack by Rend an' his orcs? Dragons were involved wit that, probably the Black Flight. There's somethin' wrong wit them, tha's for sure. 'Is sister, Onyxia, is the dragon that Naruto an' I fought way back. Somethin' was wrong with her too, but I'd say something worse is wrong wit' Nefarian. Onyxia we nearly didn' beat, so I dunno how we're gonna stand a chance agains' Nefarian when he's still got a bunch o' his flight and a Red on his side too."

Shikamaru nodded, but said nothing in response. "We'll wait and see. The others should be arriving any day now."

* * *

But the dwarves came first.

The cold night had set in when they came, the sounds of their tanks interrupting the still beauty of the desert night with an unnatural rumble that did not suit the clear air. The residents of Kargath were in arms by the time they were visible, descending into the canyon in a flood of headlights and grinding gears and bursting engines and hissing steam, stopping just at the outset of outpost, before the wall of decaying animal parts. Even not in motion, their tanks made enough noise to seem as if they came from all around, echoing off the canyon walls, belching smoke and shuddering until the engines exploded into silence. Hatches on top of each tank made metallic clangs as they opened, and dwarves hefted themselves out, clad all in black chain armor and wielding a wide variety of weapons, most notably their trademark rifles with long sights and wide barrels. By the time they had got into a line, the very picture of military precision and discipline, Shikamaru and the others were standing at the gate, waiting to meet them, as nonchalant as a gang of school bullies facing a group of weaker students attempting a feeble rebellion.

"Stand fast," a dwarf ordered Shikamaru, as he made to move forward. "Dinna think about movin' again."

Shikamaru stopped. "Fine," he said. "We're the shinobi sent to retrieve your new king. My name is Nara Shikamaru."

"An' you know me," Undrig said, somewhere behind him.

Evidently, the lead dwarf did. "Undrig? Tha' you?"

"Aye," said Undrig. "Lower ye weapons, ye got no enemies 'ere."

"Those orcs behind ye say diff'rent," the dwarf said. His soldiers had their rifles trained on them now, where they peaked out from between the bone ornaments adorning the small wooden wall that enclosed the outpost. They had crossbows trained on the dwarves as well, and appeared excited now, their eyes glowing in the light of the headlights.

"They'll cause you no harm," said Shikamaru, "they—"

"Quiet, 'uman," the dwarf snapped. "Where are they? Lady Moira an' her son?"

Shikamaru went quiet. "The message I sent detailed nothing of Lady Moira. She did not return with us."

Silence greeted him. He heard several audible clicks, noticing movement in the flood of headlights behind the dwarves, mere shadows now. They were preparing their weapons.

"Did those orcs—"

"Stop."

It was not Undrig this time, but Thauraan. The little dwarf now stood by Shikamaru's side, standing as tall as he could and glaring with as much force as his little eyes could muster. The dwarves held off, some even lowered their weapons. There was something of Magni and Moira in the boy's eyes and glare, they must have seen, even if his looks took after his father.

"If I am to be your king, you will not harm anyone here. They have not only rescued me from death, but they," he motioned to the orcs of Kargath, "have housed us and given us food and rest so that we might be able to greet you here today. My mother is dead, along with my father, by Ragnaros' hand, and the Dark Iron Empire now lies throneless, as does yours." He'd prepared the speech beforehand, with some help from Shikamaru and Ino. "So lower your weapons, please, and I will go with you now, to the beginnings of my new kingdom."

There was no point in staying, Shikamaru had said. The dwarves would probably just come and take him away, without deigning to linger, and Shikamaru thought that was best, even if Thauraan didn't.

The dwarves glanced at each other, taking in the small dwarf that stood before them. He was only a child, yet he spoke with a cold fire that reminded them of Moira, and there was a strange wisdom in his words and eyes, like their former king. It was not long before the Dwarven soldiers had lowered their weapons, and returned to the tanks to start them up. Only the leader remained, stepping forwards. He looked at Shikamaru.

"Thank you."

"No problem," said Shikamaru, with a careless shrug. "It was our mission. We're shinobi."

"I remember," the dwarf grinned, "one o' ye greatly impressed His Highness King Magni a few years back; gave 'im one of the finest blades I've evah seen."

"That'd be Naruto," said Shikamaru.

"Heh," the dwarf grinned. "Thought you knew 'im. 'e was a great kid, loads o' fun—kept us all on our toes when 'e was there, an' I'm glad he found a way ta' get back. Wish I could see 'im again, see if 'e's learned a thing or two with the sword that I taught 'im to use."

Shikamaru blinked. "You…?"

"Undrig!" the dwarf called. "You staying 'ere?"

"I am, sir," Undrig said.

"Why?"

"To help mah friends, sir."

"Good." The dwarf nodded to Thauraan, who remained at Shikamaru's side. "Then if ye will, Your Highness, follow me to my tank, we'll be on our way. Is nobody else comin'?"

"No," said Shikamaru. "We'll all stay here, for now. We're supposed to meet someone."

"The kid?"

"The same."

The dwarf winked. "Tell 'im Berlyiro sends 'is highest regards, and a wish to meet 'im in the pub when we next 'ave the chance. Been waitin' a damn long time to see that boy again!"

Shikamaru smiled back, and gave him a small bow. "I will." He turned to Thauraan, who stood staring up at him, as if expecting something. "Good luck," he said, simply.

"I'll do my best."

"That's all he would've wanted."

Thauraan smiled, turned, and walked away with Berlyiro, never once looking back at the small group of shinobi that stood, half shrouded in darkness as they always had been. He decided as he descended into the cramped interior of the tank that he would see them again, and would eventually shed some light on them.

He had never had any friends, but he knew exactly what they were, as he left them there, in the cold night, awaiting the vengeance of a man whom Thauraan would make sure went down in history.

* * *

Blackrock Spire screamed with the sounds of the darkest celebration in history, fiercer and more terrifying than anything a human mind, even those not right, even those of the illusionists of the Darkmoone Faire, could conjure. The mountain shook with wrath and a passion that it could not contain, oozing roars and snarls and the scraping of claws against rock and the crashes of rocks being dusted, crushed by a ferocity of movement so wild that it made a tornado the epitome of order.

Yet it rang with life, something that it had not done for years.

At its highest point, there was near silence, save for the wind, and the low growls of one dragon, highest of them all.

Nefarian was wracked pain, pain so fierce that a god could not have suffered it for long without going mad. Across his left side, just under his wing, a monstrous gash had been torn, straight through his scales, straight through flesh and nearly cracking bone. It was without a doubt the worst wound he had ever suffered in battle, even worse than that inflicted by his former enemy, Vaelastrasz, in his first meeting with the fool so many years ago. It was pain; unearthly pain, seemingly amplified by the hissing blood that emerged from it, dissolving the rock where it touched on his chamber's floor. He snarled in pain, but also in a fierce, triumphant delight.

He couldn't believe how good he felt; pride burned through his veins like a forest fire, infecting every bit of his body that had feeling in it, and he reveled in it. He was strongest, strongest of them all, and this proved it! He was a god! No, more than that, he was a dragon, a Black dragon, greater than his father, greater than his sister and mother, greater than all before him. Who else could have destroyed an elemental, the creator of fire, the servant of the Old Gods now sealed or dead? Who else?

No one!

He felt it deep within him, and feeling a urge to see it again, he gave a coughing heave, discharging the minimal contents of his stomach; something heavy and black struck the ground, creating a spider-web of cracks around where it lay. He grinned at it, staring at the polished black runes upon it, the intricate detailed words that spelled out the Firelord's fate. It radiated hellish heat, but it was warm to Nefarian, almost joyful. If he appreciated the little things in life, it would be like a summer's day, when the sun was high and bright and everything lives in light.

But he was disgusted by such flowery rhetoric, such natural poetry. There was nothing nice about the natural world, nothing beautiful. Artifice was so much more interesting, so much more substantial.

But his mind moved swiftly past that. He listened to the sound of his children, celebrating throughout the Spire in that vicious orgy where they reveled in their power, dancing alongside their brethren as they consumed the pleasure of a battle won. But Pride was far too human a vice for him to revel in for long. He would let them continue, but he could no longer; after all, his father had too much, and look where he had ended up.

He was already thinking, his mind dampening the pain with his cunning thoughts as always; Ragnaros was dead, but that was only the first step. His Chromatic Flight had worked brilliantly, and that meant that he had a potential army at his disposal, always. He could simply conjure one up, just like his enemy. But unlike his enemy's—former enemy's—army, his would be strong, invincible, even.

But what then?

The idea of ruling a human world bored him. Ruling a _world_ in itself bored him. What would be the point? The feeling of dominance had already passed now, replaced with a fierce regret, even an annoyance, as if burdened unnecessarily. Perhaps this was what a god felt like—but having the weight of a world on his shoulders was not something he was accustomed to. In fact, he didn't want it, he didn't want a group of puny humans to rule over, in all of their disgusting variations, and nor did he want a world to govern, to control as he saw fit, because that would be boring, stupid, pointless. He would be but another dictator, another creature, another _god_ to be worshipped. As much as the idea of a god appealed to him, gods were always replaced. The Old Gods had been by the Titans, and they had been replaced by reason, and maybe something would come after that, if these creatures were allowed to continue their course.

Pain bit at him once again, surging forth like waves preceding a typhoon. He roared, thrashing on the stone floor, his claws raking huge grooves in them. But it wasn't comparable; it was painful, too true, but he could deal with pain. He never went anywhere without it. Pain was something that the Black Dragonflight was consumed by, something that they shared completely. Far from those of the Red, who supposedly controlled the divine flames, they could not imagine what such flames could truly do, how much pain they could truly cause. Nefarian's whole life had been measured by pain; from the moment of his birth, to as he lay wracked with the first wound he had suffered in ages along his side, caused by the bastard human who had stayed behind to insure his companions were free.

Nefarian did not hate the pain he felt; he had been born with it, he knew not what else there was besides it. In some respects he loved it, because it brought forth such poetry, such wordplay; pain, as a word, was beautiful in itself. He loved the taste of it, the sound of it, it rung eternally; echoing each time it was spoken, lingering like a sickness, dreadful as darkness, and wonderful, magical even…

'_**Wherever I Fly Is Hell; Myself Am Hell…'**_

The words were not his own; they had been first spoken by his father, whose rhetoric was incomparably weak to Nefarian's; Nefarian loathed that it had been his father who had produced such poetry, a line that was never far from Nefarian's thoughts, a line that he based his entire existence upon. But his father had been a fool, and Nefarian had proved it.

The words were no longer his hated father's, but his, and his alone.

He let out a triumphant blast of wrathful, wild sound, which silenced the Spire in seconds; it echoed with hatred as lingering and constant as the sun of a scorched desert, it was wild, unbelievable, and glorious to Nefarian. Hate was one other word he so enjoyed, because it was always there, always a constant companion to the pain. Not hate of the pain, but of everything that did not have it.

So perhaps that was what he should do?

Why rule a world, when you could bring it the same pain you always felt? Why dominate when you could teach?

Nefarian began to feel joy beyond anything he had felt before. His children had begun again in earnest in their celebration, feeling their father's wild emotions spread throughout the Spire, and then the whole of Blackrock; beneath it, in the Depths, the Dark Iron Dwarves quaked in fear of their new master, perhaps worse than the old one.

Yes, Nefarian thought, spreading out his wings, standing on all four feet despite the pain that slammed into his side with each movement; that is what he'd do.

Pain.

Pain for all.

_Hell_ for all.

* * *

They arrived the next day when the sun was high, the sound of their zeppelin roaring in the silence of the dusty canyon where Kargath lay. Shikamaru and his group had sequestered themselves in the empty storage shed they had taken over for the majority of the morning, but ran out to greet them. For a few moments their zeppelin was only a nameless sound in the air, echoing across the vast expanse of the canyon, before it finally emerged, swooping over the outpost and then turning back, probably to let them off at the entrance to the canyon that Shikamaru's group had used several days previously to enter the same way. This time, Kargath's sentinels had their fears allayed before they were totally pressed into action (something that they were grateful for); they still hung idly by, ready to combat any threat that was equivalent to an attack by a few half-starved furry predators, and no more. Shikamaru and the others waited at the entrance to the outpost, their faces more suited to stone ornaments decorating a castle wall.

Naruto made his presence known first, with a bellow that was as loud as the zeppelin's engine, and echoed just as fiercely.

"OI! YOU GUYS THERE?"

Though annoyed that Naruto hadn't waited until he could at least see them to avoid unnecessary speech, Shikamaru responded anyways.

"YES!"

Naruto appeared a second later, landing nigh soundlessly a few meters before him from the top of the canyon wall beside them. Haruno Sakura and Hatake Kakashi arrived seconds later in the same fashion, but already Naruto was striding up to Shikamaru. His face was worry, anger, and pain all mixed. Shikamaru knew exactly what was to come next.

"What happened?" Naruto said immediately.

"Hello, Naruto," Shikamaru said, with a nod. "Sakura, Kakashi-sensei."

Naruto curtailed his second attempt to get an answer out of Shikamaru, simply staring with barely suppressed emotion into his eyes; it hurt to look, or stand still, in the face of such eyes, so Shikamaru nodded and said. "Let's head to someplace, while not more comfortable, certainly better suited to discussing such an important question." He nodded and they all went back to the storage shed; Naruto did not even spare glances at the orcs who glared at him from all sides, while Sakura and Kakashi dealt out polite nods to everyone they managed to make eye contact with.

Inside the dusty, cramped shed, after everyone had managed to pull up a seat, Shikamaru began without any further prompting; starting with the mission details, what had happened at each point during it, and ended with what they had done so far in the aftermath. He spoke each word calmly, clearly, concisely, as if he had rehearsed it. When he had finished, he merely stared at Kakashi, as if daring him to find a counter-argument.

Kakashi had several, but he did not voice them immediately. "Very well," he merely said. He saw that both Sakura and Naruto were too deep in thought to voice their thoughts. "We have news as well, and you're going to want to pay particular attention, Asuma, as a large amount of it concerns you."

Asuma looked alert. "In what…no. Kakashi, don't tell me—"

"Kurenai is safe and sound, as is her child," Kakashi said, calmly.

Everyone reeled from the news, and the storage was a war zone of startled exclamations and clamoring for answers, mostly from Asuma's three former _genin_. Kakashi stopped it with a wave of his hand, though Asuma's probably contributed more, allowing Kakashi to explain everything. He added, with Naruto and Sakura's help, what they had accomplished in Hillsbrad.

By the end, Asuma was restless; he kept glancing towards the door, as if wondering how long it would take to get back to Stormwind based on how far away the door was.

"I can't stay here," he said, finally. "I have to go back."

Shikamaru whipped his head towards his teacher. "What? Asuma-sensei, you can't—"

"I can, Shikamaru, and I will; I refuse to let Kurenai go through this alone, and I…well…" he shrugged. "I just have to. I don't expect you to understand."

"Nobody's going to stop you," said Kakashi. "Matthias plans on going back later tonight, after we have discussed actually what, and if, this is going to happen or not."

"It is," said Shikamaru, calmly. "Whether you approve of it or not."

"That hardly has anything to do with it," said Kakashi. "I'll disapprove of it either way. Question is, is it anything but the extraordinarily stupid decision that I think it is?"

"Yes."

"Explain, then, please." Kakashi sat back, his face never changing, though the action made Shikamaru feel a prickling of anger, as if Kakashi was smiling smugly in his face.

"Well," said Shikamaru, thinking a bit, "why do we have to explain this to you? Are you the Hokage?"

"No," Kakashi said, his eyebrow raising. "Fancy that. Well, let's just say I'm the 'objective observer' of this conversation. You're not explaining this to Hatake Kakashi, but merely an unbiased opinion who will make an informed and emotionless decision."

"That's hardly true," said Shikamaru.

"Oh?"

"That you're unbiased. Unless I'm mistaken, Gai was your best friend."

Kakashi shrugged. "How does that factor into this in any way, Shikamaru-kun?" For some reason, suffix sounded derogatory, and Shikamaru felt another spike of anger.

"That is, in fact, the entire basis of this, actually," Shikamaru said.

"Oh? So you're basing your decision on how you feel, is that it?"

"Yes, actually."

Kakashi nodded a few times. The room had fallen dead silent, where everyone was staring at the two of them. Shikamaru, still not used to the attention a leader brought, flushed a little and sat back, though steeled himself when Kakashi had no apparent reaction, not even in his glimmering black eye.

"Then, let me get this straight," said Kakashi, quietly. "Your decision to stay behind and eliminate Gai's killer is based purely on emotion, which even in the context of our society, is an utterly stupid and pointless reason for doing anything other than having sex or eating dinner. Now, factor into that the fact that we as _shinobi_ pride ourselves on being able to make decisions where emotion should_never be_ a factor, where it's written into one of our very laws as shinobi, and what do you have, Shikamaru-kun?" Kakashi's voice was deadly silent by the end, each word a breath in itself; his visible eye was narrowed into dart of black and white that his other eye surely would have matched if it could be seen.

Shikamaru didn't answer.

"You have, then," Kakashi then said, "a monumentally stupid reason for having wasted all of our precious time including Matthias and the residents of this little outpost, as well as their resources and probably their patience. There is a country—which we have contracted to aid in any way we can, in danger from a dozen enemies at once, one that doesn't need yet another enemy if you should fail in this, and does indeed need at least a few of the people in this room in order to properly function. You have also a break in exactly what it means to be a shinobi, Shikamaru-kun. You are failing to uphold your duty, and have yet failed to brief your contractor on the details of the mission, other than a few lines and a secret message. I cannot think of a reason why this little revenge plot should work, Shikamaru-kun, and you have yet to tell me, either."

Shikamaru swallowed. "I would have thought that obvious, Kakashi-san." The lack of the_sensei_ might have been an ego-bruiser in another situation, but neither party noticed it in this case. "We're doing this because Gai would've wanted us to."

"He would've wanted to get yourselves killed? No, actually, he wouldn't, Shikamaru-kun, and I can say that definitely as one of Gai's friends of more than a dozen years."

"No." Neji now spoke. "He would've wanted us to think for ourselves, regardless of shinobi laws and practices, Kakashi-san, and I can say that as one of Gai's students, of which you have never been." Neji's voice was just as deadly soft as Kakashi's.

"I'm sure," said Kakashi, "that Gai would've wanted you to think logically for yourselves, rather than emotionally."

"And I'm sure," now Lee spoke, "that Gai-sensei would rather us uphold our own moral decisions, our own beliefs, than yours or the collective majority of the shinobi people who would be in your place. I'm sure he would've had told you the same thing and expected you to help us if he had been here, and one of us had died."

"What do you base this on?"

"Just a feeling," said Lee, smiling faintly. "Just a feeling, Kakashi-san."

"And what are your beliefs? That Gai deserves to have his killer destroyed? He was never of the belief that revenge does anything but cause more damage."

"Yes," said Lee. "But perhaps we are."

Kakashi sighed, and glanced around the room. He saw looks of approval on everyone's faces, save two—Naruto and Sakura, who remained as closed in thought as before. They had undoubtedly heard all that had transpired since, but they were still thinking, perhaps for an answer, perhaps to understand the situation further, though he couldn't imagine what Naruto would be thinking about for so long. He was usually the first to jump in on such conversations, the first to try to convince Kakashi of a decision they had made. In fact, his _Ninpo_ was so close to Gai's that he should be arguing in place of Shikamaru.

"Regardless, then," said Kakashi, finally, "of whether or not Gai would have wanted this, I am still not convinced how this is beneficial in any way, other than for the practice of revenge."

Shikamaru shrugged. "There shouldn't be much more to it, than that, Kakashi-sensei. That's our entire reason for staying here, and it would be stupid to have any other reason regardless, when the result is the same, don't you think?"

It's like talking to children, the older shinobi thought. Again.

"No," he said. "I think a better reason is necessary. What do you think separates us from missing-nin, Shikamaru?"

"The fact that we don't kill our own comrades?"

"The fact that we obey orders."

Shikamaru shook his head. "That's wrong, Kakashi-san."

"How s—"

"Kakashi-sensei."

Now he speaks, Kakashi thought. His eyes slid to Naruto, who sat just one person to his left, perched on one of the empty crates they had used as seats. There was a glimmer in his eyes, like polished sapphires set before a roaring flame, and the beginnings of a smirk tugged at his lips, threatening to blossom in the course of his speech.

"Yes, Naruto?"

"This isn't a better reason, but I'm gonna say it anyways. I don't remember much of what you tell me, truth be told."

Kakashi blinked. He almost felt hurt.

"There's only one thing that's really stuck in my mind, you know, and it's not how to do some _jutsu_ or one of your lame excuses for coming late every day, even though you did have some pretty good ones, but it was something you told me on the second day after we'd met, just after we'd beaten your stupid bell-test." He paused, watching Kakashi for a reaction, though he got none.

"It was, 'Shinobi who don't obey the rules are trash, but shinobi who don't protect their friends are _lower than trash.'"_

"I do recall saying that," Kakashi said, calmly.

"So what changed, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Nothing. I just believe that—"

"So what if Gai-sensei's dead?" Naruto said. "How should that be any different? Is he not your friend anymore?"

Kakashi was silent, feeling as chastised as a child, though looking anything but.

"Gai-sensei gave his life to save all of them," Naruto said. "But does that mean that his death was useless if they go back and die fighting the same person who killed Gai, after they did it on his own teachings? I don't think so. Just doesn't make any sense, if they're doing something he taught them to do. He was your friend, too, Kakashi-sensei so you have to admit that Mega Fuzzy-Brows would've gone along with them, if any one of them had died. Another thing, Kakashi-sensei—we're not tools."

Naruto's face was open and determined, and Kakashi's shut completely, his black eye a black wall between the world and his thoughts.

"We're not tools," Naruto said again, "we're people. We're _shinobi_. Neither of those are like tools so it's stupid to call us them. We can make decisions and think for ourselves and I like it better when I have the freedom to do that instead of being labeled a tool to be used, Kakashi-sensei. And we're not normal people—they'd probably die if they went into battle like this, but we're not normal, Kakashi-sensei, we'reshinobi! If these guys are confident they can kick this fucking dragon's ass, then why the hell are you contesting it?" He sat back, his argument finished.

"We're fucking_shinobi_, Kakashi-sensei. Not tools, not even normal humans. We're shinobi."

Sakura cleared her throat. "And you're forgetting something else, Kakashi-sensei. There is a perfectly logical reason to go and fight, even if everyone is refusing to acknowledge it. These dragons have demonstrated before that they will destroy anything in their paths to get what they want. They attacked Stormwind once, and Orgrimmar, unless I'm mistaking Naruto's stories. In this battle, they've demonstrated that they're not even above fighting those they consider equals, and dominating them, destroying them. If this leader, Nefarian, is allowed to live, Kakashi-sensei, what would happen is that they'd likely raise another army and continue to spread their dominion, taking over, destroying and eliminating everything that crossed their paths. They are as much a threat as the Lich King and Akatsuki, and probably even more immediate."

Kakashi nodded, leaning back. "I suppose."

"Secondly, Kakashi-sensei, is that they are likely trying to recover from this past battle. They are going to be weak. What better time is there to attack?"

Kakashi stared at his pink-haired student for a long time, noticing a certain smugness in her eyes that she obviously wasn't bothering to hide. Mixed in with the grief she undoubtedly felt for Gai, the rage at his death, and a number of other things that always went on in his smartest student's mind, there was now a triumph at having delivered exactly what he had wanted, just after he had stopped wanting it.

He sighed.

"Well," he said. "Though it goes against our history and our laws and everything that I've ever been taught, it looks like I can't win. It appears that we'll have to do this." His smile was faint, almost invisible through the skin-tight mask. It then fell. "But you're wrong when you think that Gai would've wanted you to do this. Gai cared for you all more than you can imagine, and he would've gladly sacrificed his life to see that you keep yours to ensure that the future is changed."

Shikamaru shrugged. "If we continued on the way our ancestors had taught, we would've just become simple mercenaries, Kakashi-sensei. We're not mercenaries, hitmen or anything like that. We're shinobi, as Naruto says—and we're the future. Gai-sensei did believe it needed change, so why wait for the future, when we can begin the changes now?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Naruto, send a message back to Stormwind using Tsuwabuki, and another tell them to pass another on to Tsunade-sama. If we survive this, we probably won't have heard the last of this."

Nobody smiled or cheered, of course. They sat back, several of them sighing. This was not something joyous, something to cheer for. Because this battle they had always expected to win, and now they had moved onto the battle that there was such a small chance of surviving that a bath in lava seemed to have a higher survival rate. For some, they were not one step closer to winning, but one step closer to their doom.

* * *

"All that leaves then," said Sakura, "is a plan of action. What are we going to do, and do we even know if we can do it?"

"We only know the general location of the target," said Shikamaru. "And that's the Blackrock Spire."

"Which is?" said Kakashi.

"The tallest mount'n in the Blackrock range," said Undrig. "You'll recognize it when we show it to ye."

"A general location is good," said Neji. "That is all I need; once we are within range, I can locate it as best I can. What is most dangerous is entering, and getting past its remaining forces, which are doubtlessly more numerous than we are prepared for."

"True," said Shikamaru. "We have discussed a few plans, but none seem safe, or feasible. A direct entry would be foolish, as would an attempt to climb the mountain—that would simply tire us, and the majority of it is sheer cliff, as I recall. Do you have any ideas?"

"No," said Kakashi.

"What's the point of making a plan now?" Naruto said.

"While making plans at the last second works for you, it isn't a good idea in such a case as this, Naruto," said Kakashi.

"I didn't mean that," said Naruto. "We don't even know the first thing about this place, so why the hell are we just sitting around, speculating and saying a bunch of general stuff that we already know? Let's get there and then figure out what to do, using Neji's eyes."

"It's a good idea," said Shikamaru. "But even when we find out where to go, that still leaves only two ways of entering, both of which I do not like. These are not ordinary humans we face, and thus I doubt the same techniques can be employed to fool them."

"How do you figure?" Naruto said.

"Their sense of smell and their sixth sense seem to be much higher than humans; we were quickly found out in all the confusion in the Molten Core, probably because we were humans amongst the smell of dust and metal and fire. We have distinctive smells, and _henge_ is not complicated enough to change smell. I've been around Kiba long enough to know that."

"Okay," said Naruto. "So we climb."

"As I said before, that will just—"

"Not if we just go halfway, or something," said Naruto. "There has to be more than one entrance, and if it's a mountain, it'll give us time to rest—there'r plenty of ledges to just rest on, wouldn't you say? I bet they're too happy they've won to care about a couple of people on the outside wall."

"We've had plenty of time to rest," said Shikamaru. "Any longer will just lessen the advantage we have—his forces are wounded, and so is he, probably."

Naruto frowned, crossing his arms, and sat back. "Well, we're not going to get anywhere just sitting here. We should probably just get going, and decide for ourselves when we get there. There might be another way, who knows?"

"Hey," Sakura suddenly asked. "Could we fly to the top?" She was looking at Naruto.

The blonde boy blinked, frowned, cocked his head to the side a few times as his face screwed up in intense concentration, and then he broke out in a brilliant smile, and said

simply, "Yep!"

Everyone sighed.

"You're the one who usually points out the obvious, Naruto," Shikamaru said.

"Occam's Razor, eh, Ms. Forehead?" said Ino, grinning.

"Shut up, Ino-pig."

"This is what genius brings, I suppose," said Kakashi, with a sigh. "We'll leave tomorrow. Everyone better get some rest, say some prayers and do whatever you need to do before we head out, as there's a good chance we won't be getting back."

Everyone was silent.

* * *

"Are you really leaving?" Shikamaru said, calmly.

Asuma nodded. He and Shikamaru were walking up the narrow gulch that led up to where the zeppelin had been parked, where Matthias and his crew were amusing themselves by playing a game of football, their shouts ringing through the canyon long before they were visible.

"Asuma-sensei…"

"I told her not to get involved, if anything happened," said Asuma, calmly. "Yet she did. She could've died, if what Sakura told me is true." He had spoken to Sakura afterwards, getting exactly Kurenai's prognosis. It hadn't changed his mind.

"But she didn't, and her child is fine…"

"Shikamaru, I don't know if I can explain it any better than I already have. It's just something that I feel I have to do."

"But do you? You know yourself that you were be an incredible asset to this mission, Asuma-sensei, you—"

"This isn't a mission, Shikamaru, it's still just revenge, though now you're operating under the idea that you'll be doing the world a favor. While that might be true, that's still no excuse, even if Kakashi relented." He flicked his cigarette away, and retrieved a new one; he'd been rolling them all day, after one of the orcs had shown him how using some dry leaves instead of proper paper, which was scarce in the desert. He then turned to look at Shikamaru, his face entirely composed. "You wouldn't be questioning me if you knew exactly what this meant to me."

Shikamaru went silent, sighing a little. "I am glad she's safe, Asuma-sensei, but what can you do for her right now?"

"I can not die."

"Yes, but…"

"I would like to see my child grow up, or at least seen him or her born, Shikamaru. I hold no illusions that I might die before then, but doing it for revenge is stupid, as stupid as she was when she tried to defend a princess she hardly knew when she was _fucking pregnant._ It would be a meaningless death, at least in my eyes, because I would have had the choice to back out."

"So you weren't convinced back there?"

"What Naruto said was all true; what Sakura said was true. I feel bad that I am not going with you to avenge Gai's death—he was an important friend to me. But he wouldn't begrudge me going back to be with my family. He would've encouraged it. I feel like shit doing it, but that isn't going to stop me." He sighed. "And don't get me wrong, Shikamaru, I care about you and the rest. I don't want any of you to die, and if any of you do, I will never be able to forgive myself. I'm frustrated out of my mind, but I still can't do it. It would be a mistake to stay; I probably wouldn't even be at my best. I'd be distracted all the time."

"If that's the case, then why are you still a shinobi, Asuma-sensei? Kurenai-sensei is not going to be joining you for a while; if you're a shinobi, you'll be away from her all the time—why should you be any less distracted?"

"But she won't be in a hospital bed forever, Shikamaru, and she won't have always just been assaulted by a group of shinobi probably ten times stronger than I'll ever be. She won't always be pregnant. That's my point, Shikamaru—she needs me now, and I need her; I need to see her safe, if even just for a while."

Shikamaru sighed again, and fell silent. Asuma stared forwards for a while, and neither spoke until the end of the canyon became visible, the inflated top of the zeppelin just visible.

"I don't blame you," Shikamaru finally said. "I suppose it makes sense, in a way; he's just like we are, isn't he?"

"Might be a she," Asuma said. "But yes."

"The future."

"The future."

Shikamaru threw him a little half-smile. "I suppose this is a way of revenge as well, isn't it?"

"Bringing another one of us into the world, yeah, I suppose it is in some way." Asuma smiled back, in the same way.

"Fine," said Shikamaru. They stood at the top of the canyon, watching as Matthias scored a goal and let loose a whoop of joy, while half of his crew cheered and the other half hung their heads and mechanically lined up to shake each other's hands for a hard fought victory. A few had quickly detached themselves, rushing back to the zeppelin to begin preparing it for flight.

"But," Shikamaru said. "Give me your trench-knives."

Asuma glanced at him. "Think you can use them properly?"

"I have time to figure them out."

Asuma unhooked a pair of knuckle-dusters from his belt, each one possessing a four inch blade at the end. Before he handed them to Shikamaru, he dug around in his pouch for something else, and then produced a pair of cigarettes.

"What're those for?"

"Missing friends," said Asuma. He handed the four objects over. "Normally I'd tell you that smoking's bad for your health, but I think you have enough self-control for this. One for me, one for Gai. If you don't smoke them, just keep 'em safe, okay?"

Shikamaru glanced up at him. He smiled.

"Sure. Thanks, Asuma-sensei."

Asuma nodded. His gaze lingered on Shikamaru for a while longer, before he turned and trudged away towards the zeppelin, meeting Matthias on the way. He looked back only once, but by that time, Shikamaru had already descended into the canyon.

* * *

"Kira's going to be mad at you, I think," Sakura said.

Naruto glanced at her as a rush of warm wind hit him in the face. They sat at the top of the canyon overlooking Kargath, having gotten tired of the smell of the outpost and having nothing else to do. Sakura had suggested that training was probably a bad idea, since it might just tire them out before such a dangerous mission.

"Probably," said Naruto, quietly. He stretched, and sat back. "Are you angry too?"

"You'd know by now if I was angry," said Sakura, rolling her eyes. "I'd have hit you."

"Good point," he said, grinning nervously. "Why do you think that Kira-chan would be angry?"

"Because you're putting yourself in unnecessary danger."

"Yeah, but so are you."

"She probably doesn't care that much about me."

"Doubt that," said Naruto.

She glanced at him. "How do you figure?"

"Kira-chan doesn't have many friends—just me and Kylia. Now you too, so you can be pretty sure that she wants you to come back safe just as much as me. You're pretty important to her, I think."

"Do you know this for a fact?"

Naruto shrugged. "Not really, but I know Kira-chan well enough to know that much. You guys got off on the wrong start, but I think that's changing quickly."

Sakura was quiet for a while, staring across the canyon at the rising slope and the cones of the Redridge Mountains towering above them, and the black clouds that lingered above.

"I suppose so." She glanced at him. "Actually, I know so. You know what she told me?"

"What?"

"That the first time you guys met, you saw her naked."

Naruto turned bright red, and quickly turned away so that Sakura not only didn't catch sight of his red face, but didn't notice the slight trickle of blood from his nose, either.

"Y-yeah."

Sakura adopted a sly smile. "She's grown since, hasn't she?"

"Sakura-chan!"

She grinned. "Sorry, couldn't resist." She turned away, trying to crush the sudden sense of nervousness that now flowed through her. They sat silently like this, each stewing in their own confusion.

Crap, Sakura thought. I've made it awkward. I shouldn't have said that. She stole a glance at Naruto, but still couldn't see his face. A dozen things were floating in her mind about how to handle the situation, but the more she thought about it, the harder she found it was to think of something that wouldn't make the situation more awkward that it already was. She didn't feel like talking about Sasuke now, either, and hoped Naruto didn't bring it up.

"Why do you think he did it?"

Sakura glanced at him again. His face had regained its normal color and he had wiped away all the blood.

"Who?"

"Sasuke."

She sighed. "I don't want to talk about him now."

Naruto blinked, and then nodded. "Right."

"After all of this is over, Naruto. It'd be much easier."

"Yeah," said Naruto, "that's probably true."

"How's your technique going?"

"Great, actually," said Naruto. "I think I've found a way around it. We'll have to see, though, if it'll actually work."

"Mind telling?"

Naruto flashed her a smile. "It's a S-E-C-R-E-T."

She stuck out her tongue. "I surprised you know how to spell it."

"Geez, you sound more and more like Tsunade-baba every day."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No. Just makes me gotta watch what I say more often. I don't want to get ultra-pounded by another one of your super-punches."

They both began to laugh, and continued joking like this, as day slowly faded, and night slowly rose.

* * *

The night air was crisp as always, though Lee didn't really mind it. He stood near the entrance to Kargath, going through a series of exercises that Gai had once taught him to calm his mind as well as exercise his body. His movements were fluid, powerful, and quick as bolts released from crossbows. The only sounds he made were brief exhalations and light steps on the sandy rock; he did not even shout as he normally did when practicing _kata _at the execution of an attack. But then again, those were just practiced until a shinobi could release them same amount of feeling that such a sound brought without sound, and even induce the same amount of fear—with just appearance and spirit.

Gai had always told him that sound was only a force for spirit, a carrier, nothing else. If you could produce the same effect without sound, it was not only more effective in sneak attacks, but it could be far more powerful, far more forceful than a strike motivated by volume. Lee had always had a problem with it, mostly because he liked shouting too much.

But recently, he had resolved to change that.

He went through the_kata_ twice, executing it each time perfectly, but still feeling that he had not yet gotten the breathing down, or his spirit focused. He was about to attempt a third time when he noticed Kakashi. The man was leaning against the closed gate of the outpost, watching him.

"Ah!" Lee said aloud, and bowed to the older man. "I didn't see you, Kakashi-san!"

"That's fine," said Kakashi. "It means I've still got my touch. How are you, Lee?"

Lee gave a nod. "Well, Kakashi-san. And you?"

"Fine," Kakashi said. "But I was asking more specifically how you're feeling in general. About Gai."

"Ah," said Lee. "I couldn't tell you. I do not wish to think about it until after this is all over. I'm afraid I might be useless otherwise." He sighed. "You did not see me on the way back. If it weren't for Shikamaru-kun…"

"It's only understandable," said Kakashi. "That's sort of how I feel right now as well."

"Truly?"

"It's how I deal with all of my friend's deaths," said Kakashi. "At least most of them. I'd rather be useful than show them the despair I truly feel. But there's always time for that later."

"Indeed, Kakashi-sensei."

"After all this is over, I'd like to have a talk with you," said Kakashi.

"About what?"

"Gai, his life, things he probably didn't see fit to tell you or the others. Things that you should know and things that he would've told you."

"Ah. I look forwards to it, then," said Lee, turning away, and resuming his _kata_.

Kakashi nodded, turned, and vanished.

* * *

"We're not using Matthias?" Shikamaru choked.

"Nope," said Naruto scanning the horizon for miles around, at the top of the canyon that housed Kargath, where he and Sakura had been the other day. They stood at the top of a rapid slope that showed the expanse of the Badlands for miles; Naruto hadn't realized they were so big. There was no way anyone would be able to cross them in a few days, or even a week; it was just an endless sea of dirt and dust with lighthouses of rock jutting out every so often. From where they stood, these rocks formed a series of complicated and winding canyons, and it proved that the desert plains that Shikamaru and his group had crossed were only a small part of the Badlands. To their backs was the Redridge Mountains, which separated the Badlands from the Burning Steppes, whose sinful black clouds and steadily rising smoke were just visible over their tops.

"That'd be too dangerous for him," Naruto said.

"Are we going to use one of your toad summons?" Ino said, with a raised eyebrow and a faint note of disgust in her voice.

"Nope."

"Good."

Naruto cast a glance back at her. "Dunno if you'll be saying that soon. Hopefully this'll work, and he won't be as bad as the other one."

"What other one? Who?" said Asuma.

"The other boss," said Naruto. "Of my second summoning contract. The first probably won't want to see me again, or fight another dragon, so I'll try the second. Anyways, hear goes!"

He drew blood with a bite to his thumb, and then began a rush of seals that ended by him clapping his hands to the dusty earth.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu'_

In the cloud that exploded from beneath Naruto's feat, there was a piercing shriek like vermin's squeak only far louder, and so high-pitched that it along with the intense rush of a moldy, dusty, ancient stench made everyone drop to their knees, gasping for air and holding their hands to their ears. Nobody could see anything, only feel a sudden lurching beneath them, and a change of the texture of the ground. It became soft, undulating, and most lost their balance; it was like trying to stand on a galloping horse. Whatever it was that they now stood on was moving quickly and obviously did not want them on it's back. It voiced this, quite soon, in a high, shrieking voice like that of an opera singer without melody or rhythm.

"_I SMELL HUMANS, HUMANS! WHERE ARE THEY, ARE THEY? COME, COME, HUMANS, AND FACE MY MISTRESS' WRATH, HER WRATH!"_

Naruto's voice then exploded into being, somewhere in front of everyone.

"Shut it! It isn't your master!"

"_WHAT, WHAT?"_

"I said it isn't that old witch! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and I summoned you, so stop shaking and get rid of all this smoke, you stupid rat!"

While quite a foolish thing to say while standing on the back of a hostile and immensely large…thing…the creature didn't immediately answer, or kill them. Instead, there was a sudden collective movement—parts of what they were standing on began to rise up, so Chouji and Ino quickly hurried away from the rising wall of black and brown fur they stood on, which quickly came crashing down in a vicious pumping motion that lifted the beast off the ground and into the unstable, rocking air. It also cleared the smoke, and everyone suddenly discovered what they were standing on.

Ino turned green, and began to dance like a child with ants in her pants. "Ew, ew, ew, ew! Naruto, you bastard! If you'd said we were going on something like this I would've taken the toad!"

Naruto stood at the head of the beast, a giant bat, and turned at her shrill cry. He frowned. "Geez, at least is isn't a bug, Ino."

"Bastard!"

The bat was as long as the stadium in Konoha from wing to wing, and probably about half that size from head to the end of its stumpy, triangular tail. Dark fur like the floor of a forest covered its back and wings, and it rose rapidly into the air, away from great plumes of dust kicked up by each flap which would undoubtedly anger the residents of Kargath for a number of hours, but hopefully alleviate them from their eternal boredom.

The creature screeched again; it was unbelievably painful sound, high-pitched enough to shatter glass, and everyone stumbled and cried out with each burst of sound, until Naruto told it to shut up again and listen to him.

"_I KNOW YOU, YOU!"_the bat wailed. "_MY MISTRESS SPOKE OF YOU, YOU! AN ANNOYING BRAT, HUMAN, BUT YOU HAVE HER FAVOR, YES, YES! THEREFORE I WILL LISTEN TO YOU, YOU! BUT ONLY IF I WANT TO, TO!"_

"You're going to take us somewhere!" Naruto shouted. "To the top of a mountain, and you're going to drop us there, okay?"

"_WHY? WHY?"_

"Cause I said so, dammit! Just listen!"

"_WHO ARE YOU TO COMMAND ME, ME? I AM LACURAD, FIRST OF MISTRESS SYLVANAS' BATS, FIRST AND GREATEST! YOU ARE A BRAT, A HUMAN, HUMAN!"_

"And you're annoying!" said Naruto. "We both have our problems, so just do this and you can go! I signed a goddamn contract and I want it to be goddamn useful, okay?"

"_ANNOYING, ANNOYING! WHERE DO I GO, ANNOYING HUMAN?"_

Relaxing slightly, Naruto glanced back at Shikamaru. The boy stumblingly made his way over, and told Naruto the general direction of the Blackrock Spire, which Naruto relayed to the bat, who gave another wail, and whipped around, towards the Redridge Mountains, and beyond, the Burning Steppes and the Blackrock Mountains.

"_FINE! I WILL GO! ONLY FOR MISTRESS!"_

"Good!" Naruto shouted. "Let's go!"

Lacurad's first movement nearly sent Naruto and Shikamaru sailing off the great beast, and made everyone else fall amongst the stinking fur, riddled with its parasites. Around them the air howled as if they were on a fast-moving zeppelin, and the wind whipped by as they rose over the mountains, towards the deep black clouds of the Steppes, towards the endless towering figure of the Spire in the distance, towards Nefarian, towards revenge.

* * *

Vaelastrasz the Red, now the Corrupt, writhed in his own chambers, away from his master. He had not been wounded, not at all—those who had tried had quickly failed against his superior flames, against his superior strength and speed and cunning, all traits which he had recently begun to inflate to grandiose proportions in his eyes. He was stronger than any of them, any of those stupid Blacks! But each time he thought that, shame filled him, which he distantly recognized and sought to rid himself of with other thoughts or none at all. But the shame never left him and was never far from his thoughts, always creeping like shadows into everything he experienced and said. He wondered why, but whenever that happened, more shame filled him, and the pain grew worse.

He was not like the Blacks. They had known this pain since their birth, but for him it was only recent; it was unimaginable, torturous, something like a bad dream that would never end. But it didn't hurt his body; he could deal with physical pain, as any dragon could, but this pain was not like that. It was pain of a different sort, like the dull ache of heartbreak stoked until it became a roaring blaze consuming everything within him. It clouded his thoughts and made him think of things that he would never think of, just to distract himself from this constant agony. Death became the center focus of his thoughts, and the more he thought of it the more joy he felt in contemplating other's deaths. And because it was joy, it stemmed the pain within him a little, as if any positive emotion, no matter what brought it on, alleviated the agony that coursed through him. It made him want to kill just to experience that feeling, just to rid himself of that pain if only for a second, like an addict wanting just one last shot of his chosen substance just to escape from the pain of life.

He roared, but it was lost among the dozens of other roars of the celebration that raged around him. It disgusted part of him—the wanton hedonism of these Blacks would have never been present in a court of the Red, but another part of him, a part which was always growing larger, wanted to join in, experience the pleasure of a well-earned victory against an eternal enemy. But it had not quite surpassed the first part, and so they met in the middle, and he stayed where he was, letting the pain consume him.

Distantly, he wondered how it had happened.

Nefarian had once been his enemy; he always had been. Like Deathwing was his consort Alexstrasza's greatest enemy, Nefarian was Vaelstrasz's. He was a monster who, like his father, had perverted the meaning of the draconic race with his constant tampering with life and the gifts given to them by the Titans. He could remember that hate for the black dragon, but it was a distant hate now, replaced by a growing sense of apathy. He didn't care about Nefarian anymore. He just wanted to be rid of this pain, even if it had been _created by Nefarian!_

He wanted it to end. Nefarian wouldn't kill him, though, and he couldn't bring himself to kill himself. He was coward now, as well as a fool. More shame filled him, and more thoughts of destruction entered his mind, and the pain grew worse, but he quickly pushed them away, seeking another topic to dwell on.

But maybe…

Maybe they could…

He had seen his master's battle, seen how it had ended, watched it from high above when he was supposed to have been destroying Ragnaros' generals. _He_ had been wonderful, had even managed to injure Nefarian and cause the Firelord's fall. If there were more like him, more like them, then perhaps he still had a chance.

He held no hope of rescue; his Flight would not touch Nefarian, too busy with their own problems, and they could not cure what he had. Evil blood flowed in his veins, and you couldn't replace that.

But, he had hope. It was a tiny sliver, far beyond the reach of his corrupted thoughts, but it was hope. A small part of him felt joy in that, and the pain lessened.

He had hope.

They just had to come.

But would they?

He stood, growling to himself.

Yes, he decided, they would.

* * *

That looks like it's done. Next chapter is Blackwing Lair! WEEEE! I can't wait. See you guys then!

I'm back, and spent most of the last week writing this. Hopefully it'll be up to standards for you guys!

Seeya soon!

General Grievous

Next chapter: _Blackwing Lair_


	31. Vaelastrasz The Corrupt

_Disclaimer:_ _I Don't own Naruto/World of Warcraft and any characters copyrighted underneath them, nor am I being paid to produce this fiction, something I haven't actually said before in one of these disclaimers, which I know you guys are so fond of. This week's question: Why can't woodchucks chuck wood? Doesn't that bother anybody other than me?_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

The Burning Steppes flew beneath them, underneath the dark, rocky layering of clouds that seemed another world suspended above the earth. It was what the Burning Steppes had once been; miles of rocky crags and crevasses and uneven terrain formed by glassy black, smattered with grey and reddish orange, but all clouds. The smell was different, but that might have been because of Lacurad's vicious stench of an ancient tomb filled with mildew and the slowly rotting flesh of a hundred men and women. It was impossible to feel at ease atop the beast; it's back and fur rippled in the blowing wind and each beat of its wings created tremors that kept everyone off their feet. They had to sit, congregated at the middle of the summoned beast's back where there was the least movement, despite Lacurad's insistent wails that they were too heavy to be sitting all in one place.

Naruto told him to shove it.

"You're really don't like him, do you?" Sakura said, frowning.

"Nah, I've never met him," Naruto said. "But if he's like every other thing I've tried to summon, he'll be annoying and difficult and try to do things his way unless I at least try to be forceful. I mean, at least Gamabunta listens to Jiraiya, and Boreagos—"

"Who?"

"Dragon, other boss of this summoning contract," Naruto said. "Used him against that demon, Balnazzar, so he's probably not too happy with me right now, and besides, every time I summon him I think I'm going to have to pay him a few sacrifices or something. Anyways, I've had too much difficulty with summons, so I'm putting my foot down on this one."

Sakura nodded a few times, glancing towards the beast's head. "Makes sense…you seem to have this one whipped."

"Hope so."

"Good thing he's not a girl, though."

Naruto frowned, turning to meet her playful gaze. "Eh? Why?"

"Because it'd be the other way around every time, then. Girls always whip boys."

Naruto opened his mouth to protest. Then, he thought better of it.

"Yeah," he said. "Probably true."

"Definitely true." Sakura turned away, and began to whistle to distract herself from the smell, and the growing sense of unease in her stomach as they neared the Spire. She was amazed she had the courage to joke at this time. It didn't feel right; they were not on a normal mission, where even though danger was always a factor, there were times to rest— times to joke. But they had no time left, now.

She turned to Shikamaru. The boy was sitting a few feet behind him, next to Neji, who's _Byakugan_ was activated. His wide, moon-like eyes shimmered slightly in the sun, and his brow was knit in concentration as he attempted to discern where they were in relation to the Spire. They must be close, because Sakura saw that neither of the two boys looked as calm as they usually did. Shikamaru and Neji were not people who easily revealed how they truly felt about a mission—they were, like Naruto, leaders who thought it best to keep a calm face before danger, even if inside they were just as panicked and scared as the rest. But to see them like this—Neji with his brow's furrowed, and a reflective sheen of sweat on his brow even in the cool, wildly blowing wind, and Shikamaru with his grim face and downcast eyes like that of an old priest conducting a funeral during his last few days of life. She caught his eye, and he nodded. She returned it, and then turned her attention to the others.

Chouji sat next to Ino, with his eyes straight forward, his face set; it was an odd change for the normally expressive boy, whose emotions were more often than not draped across both sleeves like the anti-war protest banners that townsfolk had adopted in the Fire Country during the last Great Shinobi War. But the look proved tenuous—he too met Sakura's eyes, and gave her a nervous nod that was too quick to be natural, and then turned away.

Beside him, Ino was doing her best as well, but did not bother to hide the distress on her face. She looked anxious, and was playing with the stray lock of hair she usually let hang down in her front to give her the 'mysterious, sexy woman' look, which Sakura had last told her looked like something a prostitute would have. Her eyes, like Sakura's, were never in any one place at once, though they eventually met. Ino produced a weak smile, something Sakura had to match before moving on.

Lee sat beside Tenten, who sat beside Kakashi, all near the front where Naruto was sitting next to Undrig. Lee was doing some stretching exercises, and whispering things to himself, his doll-like wide eyes filled with a fire his former master would have wept at. He had taken Kakashi's words to heart, and was doing whatever he could to be useful, to prepare himself for the battle to come. He knew that a favorable outcome was unlikely, but he didn't let himself think over it. He wasn't a very good thinker, he told himself, he'd leave that to Sakura-chan and the rest. Sakura was impressed by his composure, though slightly disturbed when he winked at her, looking tempted to blow her a kiss. She turned away before he could.

Tenten was most nervous of all, or she seemed to be. She was polishing a blade she had produced from nowhere, and which probably didn't need polishing, as it shined with sunlight as if reflected from a mirror, and looked as deadly as the latest masterpiece of a master sword-smith. She sighed every few seconds, and kept her eyes tightly focused on the blade with the piercing gaze of a bird of prey. She was shaking very slightly, and did not notice Sakura's glance.

Kakashi was most difficult of all to figure out, because like always, he showed absolutely nothing on what little face he had exposed. His visible eye was droopy and bored-looking, as if he had been forced out into the early morning to teach a bunch of brats how to be shinobi, and there was nothing obviously visible beneath his mask. He was perfectly still, save for the swaying caused by Lacurad's flight. He met her gaze, but still offered nothing. She gave him a nod, which he returned, and then moved on to Naruto and Undrig, who sat just beside her.

The dwarf paladin looked prepared for battle. His hammer was unsheathed and lain across his lap, his armor looked freshly polished and glinted like new steel in the sun, his face was grim, hard, determined, as if he now stood on the battlefield with his comrades, waiting for the call to war to begin. He was whispering something as well, and when Sakura strained her ears, she could just hear the faint, foreign sounds of Dwarfish in a set rhythm that was wonderful to hear, even though she did not understand. It must have been a prayer, but it might have been poetry it sounded so beautiful. He kept his eyes fixed down in reverence to some unseen force, which Sakura could not understand.

Finally, her eyes settled on Naruto. The boy sat with his legs crossed, his eyes forward like Chouji's, but unlike him, it was with the absolute, nigh-limitless confidence that she knew him to possess, summoned from deep within him for just such a situation as this. His face was otherwise entirely blank, which was strange for Naruto, but his eyes reflected what his face did not; they brimmed with barely hidden emotion, determination at the forefront of them all, guiding his actions and thoughts in a way that, in the end, would probably lead them to victory. That was what usually happened, wasn't it? Naruto didn't think ahead, he just went with it, using that ferocious ambition within him to deal with what was thrown at him in a way that most shinobi would not be able to handle, but which Naruto reveled in it like a bird taking flight for the first time. She could almost see that cocky smile on his face, could almost feel what he felt, at that moment.

She smiled, and turned her gaze forwards again. Once again, Naruto's confidence proved infectious. They could do this. Naruto believed they could; even though he got so many other things wrong, faith in others was never something Naruto got wrong.

Never.

"Hey, Naruto," she said.

Naruto turned back, "Yeah?"

"We're fucking shinobi, aren't we?"

Naruto blinked.

"…Didn't know you could swear, Sakura-chan…"

She glared, and he laughed.

"Yep!" He called just loud enough for everyone to hear.

"We're fucking_shinobi!_"

* * *

The Spire came upon them all at once. It was visible through the clouds.

For about a half a mile in each direction around it, the clouds had parted to reveal a hole as deep as the Molten Core far below them, but at the top of this hole the tip of the Spire grasped upwards towards the burning orange sky like a hideous claw ripping out of the womb of the earth. It was soullessly black, nothing but jagged rocks and glowing crevasses of flame and smoke, billowing out like those from an oilrig. Sulfur burnt the air and their eyes, blotting out even Lacurad's rotten smell. It was the sole dead tree at the heart of a wasteland, but it hummed with hidden life. There was a wildness to it, a danger that one felt from staring into the deepest forests, unknown of what lurked within.

It must have been miles in diameter, because it took them several minutes to fly past it, and then slowly descend. Neji's eyes blazed white. It was a few moments before he spoke.

"There are numerous dragons and…their kin…near the summit, but they do not appear to be doing anything involving the preparations of battle or even guard duty," he said, disgust evident in his soft voice.

"What are they doing?" Kakashi asked.

"…Do I have to say?"

"Yes."

"They're…" he swallowed, and sighed. "They're…copulating…vigorously…"

Despite themselves, Tenten, Ino and Sakura all began to snicker. Rosy from embarrassment, Neji continued quickly.

"There are a number of entrances, however, none of them seem feasible for a party of our size, and they bring us dangerously close to the…festivities."

"Keep looking," said Kakashi. "There must be something."

Neji nodded.

Lacurad descended lower, but only as far as Kakashi deemed it necessary. They were far too close as it was, despite being several miles away from the Spire itself, and still hidden within the noxious clouds that engulfed the Steppes. Kakashi did not know the limitations that these creature's senses had; in their world, dragons were things of legend, like gods, and there was no known limit to their power. In this world, dragons were very real, and from what it sounded like, they were still no different from gods.

What good did it do to hide from a god within a cloud?

Neji started verbally, somewhere in the smoky clouds. He had seen something.

"Towards the back, about three quarters of the way up the mountain. It's a passage that leads towards the top, and avoids the main halls where the dragons are."

"Convenient," said Kakashi, quietly. "Why didn't you see it before?"

"I don't know. But it is there, and I do not think it just appeared." Even as he said, it however, he lost confidence. There was definitely something wrong with the situation.

"A trap?" Sakura said aloud.

"Might be," said Kakashi. "Who knows? Do you see anything within, Neji?"

"No, nothing."

"Then we might have nothing to fear—perhaps your eyes are still recovering. Naruto, can you send something down to check it out? Perhaps a smaller bat?"

Naruto made a face. "I'll try, but dunno if they'll be any good at reporting. Guess I can always try." He bit his thumb and smeared the dollop of blood on his palm, making a few hand seals.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu'_

A small bat, the size of Naruto's head, popped into existence and began to squeak, attacking Naruto's face. The boy snatched the creature out of the air before it could plant its greasy, stinky body in his face and sink its tiny, vicious teeth into his skin, and began shouting its orders at it.

"Stop moving you little bastard! Go down there and see if there's anything to see, got it? Hey, I'm talking to you! Hey! Bastard!"

"_THE LITTLE ONES, THEY DO NOT SPEAK, NO!"_

Naruto growled, letting go of the beast then banishing it as it tried to flutter away. He sourly shook his head, turning back to Kakashi and sighing with the air of knowledge someone has embarking on a venture hopeless from the beginning.

"Told you."

"Right," said Kakashi, his sigh laced with annoyed tolerance. "Then there's nothing much else we can do. We might have to risk it."

"And if it proves to be a trap?" said Neji, quietly.

Kakashi shrugged. His eye swept across the anxious group of young men and women no older than children and yet in a position that would likely take their lives with one false move, one bad decision. He sighed a final time, this time with regret that his moronic friend had to put these young, arrogant brats in this situation with his annoying, arrogant preaching, even when his regret only extended to them. He was not sorry he was here, not sorry that he might die; only dreading not being able to save their futures by giving his own. He knew he would've done the exact same thing in Gai's position, and if he had believed he could do it alone, he would've taken every one of their places in this suicide mission and fought the dragon alone.

And he couldn't deny that rush of anger he felt, deep within, buried beneath years of masterfully forged cool exterior, or that silent wish that the one who had killed his best friend was now going to die a thousand times more pointlessly than Gai had.

"If it's a trap," he said, "then we'll make do."

* * *

The mouth of the cave was too obvious, when they first saw it. It opened like a cancerous lesion on the mountain's gnarled back, an uneasy glow shining from somewhere deep within, a stream of smoke spilling like pus from the main hole, lava-lined crevasses forming the enflamed skin all around it, magma oozing like blood. But it was too inviting to pass up; it attracted them like disease would to a wound. They were like the gangrene, moving in a circular, swooping motion through the air, down until they were level with the gaping wound.

Lacurad took them about a hundred feet below the entrance, where it was best to perch and let them off. When they had, Naruto banished it as quickly as they could, not wanting to risk it causing a scene with its shrieking voice.

"Naruto, you, Lee and Chouji go first." Shikamaru pointed towards the cavern after stretching himself thoroughly. "Sakura, you're just after them." He looked at Kakashi, but the man was staring up towards the ledge, a visible frown beneath his mask. Seeing that he wasn't going to contradict, Shikamaru continued.

"You three are the main attackers—I say that because you're the only ones whose styles are tailored solely towards attacking. That means you guys are most likely going to suffer the most damage—I've chosen you as well because you guys seem to be able to handle it. Sakura, you'll be just behind them, as their primary healer. That'll only last for a while—when we're in the main fight, I want you in the back, so we can protect you and Ino and make sure you're fit to keep us as healthy as possible."

"There may not be much of a chance," said Sakura. "Naruto, you've fought dragons like this beforehand, right? What can we expect?"

"Lotsa fire. And don't expect any of your attacks to do much damage, either, guys," he said, looking at Chouji and Lee. "These guys are wicked strong, and most attacks just don't do much to pierce those scales; you hafta hit hard, but also be fast because even though they're big, they're very, very quick. The fire's the big thing, though—you probably know it, but it burns way hotter than normal fire, even shinobi fire, and its big enough to cover you entirely, so if you see it coming just get out of the way. Sakura-chan's good, but she probably can't heal a skeleton. But you've met this guy beforehand, right Shikamaru?"

"Briefly," said Shikamaru. "There's also something else. A power that you didn't describe."

"What?"

"It had something to do with what he said. Almost as if he was using _jutsu_ by simply speaking words, rather than hand seals. I can't say how, though."

"No, it's something like that," said Ino. "He told me to stop, and I remember thinking that it was insane to stop, but my body just did—I couldn't move, almost like a paralyzing _jutsu_. It was too strong to break, but I suppose I can't really compare with a dragon, now can I?" Her sardonic grin faded as quickly as it came, her attempt at lightening the situation failing.

"So we gotta watch out for his words?" Naruto said, eyebrows up. "How's that possible?"

"Maybe," said Shikamaru. "It could be his words, or it could be that he could use_jutsu_ without hand seals, which is probably more likely."

"Shikamaru, would it not be better if either Tenten or I went up with them?"

Shikamaru turned to Neji, shaking his head. "No, I need you two behind, with me, Undrig and Kakashi-san. Both of you have some skill in medical _ninjutsu_, which makes it likely that you'll need to help take over Sakura or Ino's duties should one of them get injured, or if they're already attending to someone else. We're going to be in the middle, doing what we can to help—all of our styles are more versatile, and better suited to support in a large battle like this than directly attacking. We also have long-distance support, at least from Tenten—"

"Oi, Tenten!" Naruto said. He jammed a hand into one of his pouches, and grinning, held out a scroll to the bewildered girl.

"What's this?"

"Special _kunai_," Naruto said, with pride. "I got 'em from Magni, a while back, after Undrig brought him some of the stone they found in Onyxia's cave. They should probably be able to do at least some damage."

Tenten took the scroll and nodded, with a small smile. "Thank you."

"Like I said," Shikamaru continued. "Long range support. As for Neji, you can provide some ample defense with your _Kaiten_, as well as attack long-range, if you've been learning anything from Hinata."

Neji had, though he would not admit it. He merely nodded, directing his attention above, without moving his head an inch from where it was, staring at Shikamaru with barely concealed annoyance.

"What of what happens after?" Kakashi then slowly said, drawing everyone's attention, though his never shifted from above. "Have we thought of that?"

"Assuming we're alive—"

"Assuming everything goes right during the battle, I agree, but I'm thinking before that. What if something goes wrong? Is there an escape plan, or is everyone committed to dying a slightly heroic, if mostly meaningless death, otherwise? There's no shame in abandoning this mission, is there?"

His brows knitted, Shikamaru didn't answer at first. He regarded Kakashi calmly. "Why bring that up now?"

"Why not? Seems as good a time as any. There may be someone among you that would prefer to live rather than die. I'm merely saying that there is always a choice, do you not agree, Shikamaru-kun?"

"Of course," said Shikamaru. His teeth were clenched, as were his fists, though he knew not why. "Are you suggesting something?"

"Nothing. Just experience taking precedence."

"I see."

Kakashi finally met his eyes. "No one will begrudge anybody who decides that live is better, will they? After all, is that not what Gai wanted for you all?"

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, quietly. "Please shut up."

Kakashi quickly glanced at Naruto. The boy was farthest away from him, glaring up at the mountain, his body tense and ready to move. He did not look at his teacher, or even speak to him again.

Kakashi nodded, and he spoke no more.

"Let's go," Naruto said.

They got into two groups; Naruto, Lee and Chouji stood at the front, Sakura just behind them, with Kakashi, Shikamaru, Undrig, Tenten and Neji in the back, with Ino last. Then they started upwards, the second group waiting several minutes before following the first group up. The climb was quick, their shinobi reflexes (Undrig required some help) taking them quickly to the top, where they could feel the infernal breath seeping from the cavern's jaws, and just hear a sample of what the mountain contained. It moved, like a living thing, making sounds that a mountain should not.

Naruto's group slowly made their way in. It was hot, but moist, like a swamp. A wide, uneven passage was before them, scaling up into darkness. The deep glow came from all around them, a fiery red, showing through cracks and crevasses but yielding nothing of what lay behind them. It could've been magma, but nothing gushed from them, nothing moved within them. When the second group arrived, Neji checked the entire room again, but saw nothing; yet they all felt something. Nothing in particular, just a general sense of unknowing, of wrongness. It might have been the mountain and their own fears rising to the top again. Kakashi didn't like the explanation, however, and told everyone to stay close, keep their eyes sharp, their senses trained. He did not mention how meaningless it might be; they were not facing humans, who made mistakes, but beasts that might be gods.

Could gods make mistakes?

They went up the sloping path, which led them into a high-ceilinged tunnel stretching upwards for what seemed like miles, crowded with jagged stalagmites sticking like teeth from the walls and ceiling and floor. It seemed to grow darker, more enclosed as they went, and the unnerving red light did not fade, pursuing them all the way up. Neji kept his_Byakugan _activated at all times, his eyes glowing in the darkness but seeing nothing but the raging life that the Spire contained, all around them. They were walking straight through it, at one point, and even though most of them couldn't see it, they certainly heard it through the walls, boiling wrath and passion charging against them with each step. But so long as it continued, they would be safe.

They finally reached a room with a flat surface of richly carved black stones set in cobbles on the floor. It was circular and very large, and had only one entrance, opposite where they emerged from. Shikamaru's eyes moved shifted as he passed into the room, noticing the jagged edges of the entrance of the tunnel they had just emerged from. Fresh rock lay scattered about it. It looked new.

Kakashi noticed this as well. He called for them to stop.

"Neji?"

"Nothing."

Kakashi narrowed his eye. Then, he lifted his _hitai-ate_, and was nearly blinded.

"GET BACK!"

Suddenly, there was movement, not quick, nor fierce, but startling nonetheless. The dark air was suddenly bright, flames exploding into being in the middle of the room; coiling blasts of fiery white light that burned into red and black and eventually formed a shape, first massive and draconic, then diminutive and human. A man emerged from the flames, stumbling like a drunk; he was handsome, though his red hair was matted with sweat, and he looked delirious. His red clothes so bright they seemed aflame; they flowed and rippled as immaterial as water blown by the wind, when there was none.

What the hell was that…? Kakashi thought, clutching his _Sharingan_, which burned as if he had stared into the sun. It had been so bright, so monstrous. What kind of creature had that type of power? It had not been the amount so much as the nature, so brightly burning, fierce, like a wildfire all around them, sunrays trapped deep within the endless blackness.

The man searched them all, but did not move. Everyone looked ready, their faces set and determined even against the fear that welled up within them at the sight of the man. His appearance was weak, but to anyone who'd ever been in a battle of any sort, the killing intent he radiated could've made a lesser man shit himself.

"You're here…!" he said, almost gasping. He was smiling, gratefully.

"Stay back," Kakashi warned. "You three, stay fast. Sakura, get to the back."

"I've been waiting," the man said. "I even made an entrance for you, you're hear to avenge him, right, avenge the man who fought against His Highne—Nefarian, aren't you? I recognize you, one of you…!" His desperate eyes sought out Shikamaru's. They were blood red, wet with black seeping in like bile to a chest wound.

"Don't attack, not yet," said Kakashi. "Keep calm. Wait for him to react first, especially you, Naruto."

"Thank you!" the man said, his smile weakening, his face contorting as if about to cry. "Thank you, so much, for coming! I never doubted it, but I was afraid, afraid that I'd have to give in, give up, but now I don't have to, because you can do it for me…please, that's all that I ask, I only ask one thing before you make your way to Nefarian. You'll find him behind me, he is not far; just seek the highest point, using all your speed, and you'll find him soon enough. He's weak, so you'll be able to do what I couldn't, what I failed so miserably to, to, to…" He trembled. "To do…by the Red, by the Red, it hurts! IT HURTS!"

He gave a hacking cough, and his body seemed to fade, just briefly. Tenten seized up in terror upon seeing what momentarily replaced it.

"You are strong…wonderfully strong…you can do it…you're humans…humans are weak but I've seen you…you're not normal ones, you could do this, you could do what I couldn't…! And you're not cowards like me…never cowards…you came back here, even ready to face death…I couldn't, I was too weak, even now, I am afraid…afraid of it…I could not do it myself…could not do what I must ask you do to…"

"What the hell is he talking about?" Naruto whispered, mostly to himself.

"Kill me…" he said. "KILL ME! YOU MUST KILL ME! I MUST DIE!" He stumbled back, and his hair began to catch fire. His red garments began to harden and cling to his body, sparks shooting off of him in great bursts.

"Please…that is all I ask…" the man said, less a man now, his face elongating, his teeth lengthening, his blood red eyes swelling ever larger.

"Kill you…?" Shikamaru whispered. "What…?"

"I am a coward…who must die…my body is no longer my own, my mind following. I cannot kill myself, cannot…cannot…" He was no longer human. Wings exploded from his back, spreading wider and wider with sickening cracks and great gouts of flame.

"His blood, his black, black blood, it hurts, so much…so much…I cannot bear it…this pain, this endless pain! I have to end it…you have to end it…please, PLEASE!"

"How…? How are we supposed to do that…?" Ino whispered.

"Endless…endless…" the red dragon said, "_**ENDLESS, ENDLESS…TOO MUCH PAIN…"**_

It was fully transformed now, huge and bloody red with claws that gleamed silver and scales shimmering like sparks, its wings nearly covering the diameter of the room. It's size forced everyone back, towards the entrance. But it stayed where it was, just breathing like a ragged old dog.

"_**PLEASE…ENDLESS…KILL ME…KILL…THIS ENDLESS…"**_

The creature gave another ragged cough, and then sucked in a huge breath of air, turning its head up.

"_**ENDLESS…END…ME…"**_

A flash of light burst from its mouth, exploding against the ceiling and dousing the room in coiling red smoke. It coursed towards them like the incoming tide, as fast as a tidal wave. Kakashi prepared to move back.

"Get away!"

But it was too late; the room was covered in the smoke, and before they could retreat down the tunnel it was upon them. It was not painful, though. It was warm and sweet but still seemed to possess the majesty of an erupting volcano. The obscuring smoke quickly faded, and Kakashi could see the shocked faces of his comrades all around him. Had it not been an attack? What was going—?

Then the beast moved. Lightning quick it charged, its red eyes now black, the despair gone from its voice and childish glee replacing it.

"_**END…ME…YOU…END ALL OF YOU…THE PAIN WILL STOP…ENDING YOU WILL STOP THE PAIN, WON'T IT? YES! YES! END YOU! THAT'S WHAT I'LL DO!"**_

* * *

The red dragon reared onto its hind legs and then struck the ground so that stone beneath seemed to liquefy; everyone had to scatter, only years of honed reflexes kept them from being crushed amidst the colliding stone. At once they were scattered about, surrounding the beast. The dragon twisted around, whipping its tail across the room, his onyx eyes shining against its fiery, rippling body.

Kakashi threw himself to the ground as the tail swept over him. He pushed himself up and then avoided a gleaming claw out of nowhere, faster than a flying_kunai_. His _hitai-ate_ was up, his _Sharingan_ whirling but it did little good; there was too much _chakra_, he could hardly see anything!

Shikamaru regrouped with Tenten and Neji, but dared not shout to Kakashi; he couldn't see where the man was, probably behind the red dragon. Its attention was over there, but its tail seemed to have its own life, and the three shinobi had to avoid it each second as it swung in a storm behind the wrathful dragon. Shikamaru noticed the others surrounding the beast, but none of them had attacked, not yet. Sakura stood by Ino, both being protected by Chouji; on the very opposite side was Undrig by himself; Kakashi, Lee and Naruto must have been in front of the dragon.

Indeed, they were.

Shit, Kakashi thought, Naruto, don't you dare!

Naruto didn't hear Kakashi's silent plea. The boy had already drawn his sword.

Lee started his attack as well; the young man released his leg weights immediately—they shattered the floors with their fall, and Lee could no longer be classified as human by how fast he became; his body became blurred like an arrow, fluid as rushing waves. He perhaps did not match Naruto in speed but in mobility he more than surpassed Naruto's still slightly clumsy attempt at changing directions mid-way, without losing speed.

The red dragon saw them, opened its mouth—a white hot heat began to fill the air, drying it, making Kakashi's eyes itch and his lips dry. He grit his teeth, and began to form a few seals. Draw the water out, just enough, that's—

Both Naruto and Lee separated; they dodged to the side in almost perfect unison; a pair of fists lit up with power, riddling the creature's side with blow after blow of _chakra_-enhanced muscle and bone. They cracked scales and shook the dragon's foreleg with the series of brutal traumas. On it's left, Naruto's blade sawed straight through the layers of scales as if they were nothing, his blade glowing a faint blue tinged with red.

The red dragon wailed and stopped its attack, drawing back. Its eyes were no longer black, but now a mix of red and grey. The killing force it exuded did not lessen, but its demeanor was like a weakened animal separated from its comrades, lost in a forest's endless darkness.

Then it changed again, and Naruto had to throw himself to the ground to avoid the five, sword-like blades of its claws, and then scramble away to avoid their return trip. Naruto's blade gleamed with blood that was too dark to be normal, and once away from the beast he vanished into the shadows as if never there. Lee too retreated, but much more elegantly, doing a series of cartwheels until he landed by the wall.

'_Suiton: Suigadan'_

What few water molecules in the air converged besides Kakashi's head and rocketed towards the dragon, pressurize enough to shatter rock. They smacked against the dragon's front, but did not pierce its thick scales, instead drawing its wild attention towards him. The black returned to its eyes, and it roared like a fire newly born. Its mouth grew even wider, and before Kakashi could move, a stream of divinely white fire erupted forth. Kakashi leapt to the side, his hands flying up, another seal formed.

'_Doton: Doryuheki'_

The largest earthen wall Kakashi had ever created burst forth from the ground, using the ruined floor as well as the black, volcanic rock beneath as its base, rising up all the way to the ceiling. For a moment, the heat vanished, and Kakashi was obscured in darkness, but it bought him only enough time to keep running; not a second later his wall collapsed in flames and molten rock, a cone of fire streaming through it and melting the wall behind it. Even as fast as he moved, the flames were so hot that he felt his skin sear and bubble as he retreated. Fighting back the agony and a cry, he kept running, for the flames followed, as did the red dragon's gaze.

The others were regrouping. Chouji, Ino and Sakura moved steadily around the creature, now joined by Lee. Naruto was somewhere, though Shikamaru couldn't see where. Undrig was quickly heading for Shikamaru's group, his face dead set with worry.

"Gotta move," he growled in desperation. "Ain' gonna keep lookin' that way for long; stay outta its way, wait fer a chance."

Shikamaru nodded. The dragon was already turning, following Kakashi as he moved. The silver-haired man was constantly in motion, but did not attempt to circumvent the room, instead keeping the dragon's attention on himself alone. Shikamaru couldn't let him do it much longer.

But oddly, Kakashi felt quite pleasant. He did not understand it, but each movement he made was just as quick as the last, no matter how much _chakra_ he placed in it. He did not feel the strain, the pain accompanied by prolonged _chakra_ use in the limbs, the tightened muscles or the fatigue. Even with his _Sharingan _out, he felt no strain. By using his _Sharingan_ he consumed more _chakra_ than any of his _jutsu_ in just one minute—but he was still limber, unmoved by the already large amount he had used.

What was going on?

"Chouji," Shikamaru hissed, "You, Neji, Undrig, start your attack. I'll try to hold it."

"You can't possibly—" Chouji began, then silenced himself and nodded, remembering whom he was speaking to.

"Ino, Sakura, stay back as well, keep yourselves ready to treat anybody who needs it."

"Don't talk, Shikamaru, just go," Ino snapped.

"Right. Go, now!"

Shikamaru pulled Asuma's trench knives from his vest, fitting his fingers through the holes; they were comfortable, and fit snugly over his fingers. He took a deep breath, and began to push his _chakra_ into the blade, which took them like a bottle did water. The blades darkened, and a hazy smoke like flowing shadow covered both blades. Shikamaru took aim and then hurtled the blades so that they struck the ground just before the red dragon, sinking not into stone, but into the very darkness itself.

Suddenly, Shikamaru was aware that action had completely stopped. The entire room when death silent, but he couldn't understand—

Shit!

He glanced left and right; both Ino and Sakura had frozen, even their mouths remained open, but their eyes were still moving in wild astonishment. Chouji, Neji and Undrig stood just before him, as still as statues, each preparing for a dash towards the dragon.

Shikamaru was overwhelmed—since when did he have the _chakra_ to freeze an entire room and keep them completely still, almost fully paralyzed, especially when one of them was a fucking dragon!

He put his hands together, reaching out into the darkness; tendrils of shadowy _chakra_ connected him to almost everyone in the room, something only Neji could see but only Shikamaru could feel. The dragon's was the biggest, and the hardest to maintain; it was bucking as wildly as an enraged bull even though not a single part of its body was mobile. He kept that one going, and then one by one disconnected the others. Naruto's first—he was somewhere on the ceiling, preparing for a downwards cut, which might end the fight before it happened.

But Naruto's freedom was so sudden that the boy lost his footing. He tumbled out his obscurity, landing atop the dragon's rough back with a loud grunt. His sword flew from his hand, clattering atop the dark stone.

"Oi! Shikamaru!"

"Sorry…" Shikamaru grunted, but didn't know if Naruto could hear him. He was busily disconnecting everyone else, until all but him and the dragon were mobile, and very confused.

"Shikamaru—" Ino whispered, "how are you…?"

"Don't ask, no time, just hit him, now, NOW!"

Chouji reacted first. He charged at the red dragon, drawing back a fist.

'_Bubun Baika no jutsu'_

His left arm suddenly swelled a hundred times its size, until it extended the half the height of the ceiling and nearly the distance of the room. With a cry of battle-borne fury he swung all six tons of his arm forwards and though it was slow it struck so that all twelve tons of the dragon were taken off their feet and smashed into the wall. A spider's web of fissures exploded through the wall and ceiling, gushing steam and smoke and heat so much that whatever sound the dragon made was drowned out. Chouji heaved his rapidly shrinking arm back, his eyes wide.

"DON'T STOP!"

Naruto lunged forwards after his shout, Neji and Lee running on either side. While Naruto ran to retrieve his sword, Neji's hand slammed into the dragon's side, injecting _chakra_ through his diamond-hard scales into its vulnerable organs. Lee stopped a few feet short of the creature, throwing out his hands.

'_Hachimon: Shomon'_

Raw _chakra_ burst from Lee's body, encircling him like a shroud of smoke. His skin became as red with the fractured capillaries and thick with throbbing, snaky veins lining his neck and arms and face. His eyes rolled up into his head, but he didn't need them in the next second as he drove forwards and unleashed a two-handed palm-thrust into the dragon's side. The scales burst and shattered as fragile glass and drove the dragon again into the wall, sending more tributaries of cracks into the room's rapidly decaying structure. The red dragon thrashed, and then went still and made no sound, as Lee and Neji moved back, while Naruto pressed forwards for the final attack.

His blade glowed brightly, growing unmanageably long, enough to drive straight through the beast's body and tear through the other side; he held it laterally prepared a swing that would undoubtedly end the fight, but then the tail whipped to life and slammed into Naruto, thrusting him to the hard floor. Naruto cried out, spitting blood, his limbs momentarily lifeless.

The dragon reared up, born anew. Red, fiery light danced across its scales as it turned its void-like eyes upon Naruto, prostrate before him. The blonde heaved himself to his feet but the tail came again, hurtling him back across the room, his blade sailing from his grip.

Neji kept his distance, but fell into his Eight-Trigrams stance, but Lee was already attacking again.

'_Hachimon: Shomon'_

Power blazed again through him; Kakashi's eyes grew wide across the room, seeing Lee use the attack for the second time. What was that stupid boy thinking—?

Naruto stood up, stumbling a few times. Something was different. The pain was ebbing faster than normal, as if he had _chakra_ to spare, and he felt no less drained than before. His pulse quickening, he glanced at himself. Whatever damage had been caused by the red dragon's tail was gone; the small lacerations from the beast's spines had already healed, without scars, and he felt no pain in his back.

It felt almost the same.

It was as if the Kyuubi was back, giving him its _chakra_, fully formed, endlessly supplied. So what did that—?

He shook himself. The red dragon had forced Lee to retreat, resisting every blow he gave it. Each attack ruined a few scales but did nothing to dislodge the dragon from its course. Neji was preparing one of his Eight-Trigrams attacks. The others were waiting for an opening, but seemed only to be able to stand in awe of the situation, which Naruto was finding to be increasingly annoying.

"Naruto."

Kakashi was by his side.

"What?"

"You feel it, right?"

"Yeah," Naruto said. "It's like…"

"You have endless_chakra_, but you still have full control over it as well?"

"Right!"

"We do, or rather, _it_ does."

Naruto shot a look at him. "What?"

"It's giving us its_chakra_. That red smoke earlier was a means of delivering it to all of us; its giving us pretty much a constantly regenerating stream of _chakra_, probably inhaled through our lungs—it's still on the air—and that's why we feel it."

"So that means…? We can pretty much…?"

"Yes," Kakashi said.

"OI!" Naruto bellowed. "GET BACK, NOW!"

Neji moved swiftly back, but Lee didn't hear Naruto's shout, still in the throes of his Gate activation. He did not let up his assault, and the red dragon no longer moved forwards, simply standing like a pillar against a violent storm. The creature's actions had changed. The red light returned, brighter than before, bathing the dragon in rosy flames. It lowered itself, as if to lie down, and then the light grew almost too bright and Naruto could feel an intense heat wash over him. He was running even before he could stop himself.

"GET BACK, LEE!"

He moved too fast for the eye, not even a blur, leaping up and catching Lee around the midriff before the boy could plant another punch, using his vastly increased speed to propel both himself and Lee back. He slammed Lee roughly into the wall, and then as they landed on solid ground he pushed Lee to the floor and crouched over him, hands over his head.

Behind him, the red dragon exploded.

Or more accurately, its body released a shockwave of fiery _chakra_ so bright that day was lit within the cavern where the sun had never touched. There was an burst of sound and Naruto was almost deafened by the explosion, and then the heat came and the sound became the least of his problems.

It felt cold almost at first, so cold that he involuntarily shivered, but then it was just so hot that all sensation in his body was lost to pain, agonizing pain. He cried out, but didn't hear it, because he couldn't hear anything suddenly, or see or feel anything besides pain. Thoughts then began to fill his head, unbidden and unintelligible, and images of people he had known and loved but even their names fled from his head in the agony that rushed by him. He had hardened his body with_Kongou_ but not even that helped resist against the boiling agony of the dragon's attack.

Somewhere above him, somehow he could hear the dragon's voice. It was raucous, ever-changing, two minds in one.

"_**DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE! I WANT YOU ALL TO DIE! PLEASE, KILL ME! YOU MUST HURRY, YOU MUST, PLEASE, PLEASE, DIE! DIE AND KILL!"**_

The flames slowly ebbed, and the light and sound vanished.

Naruto knew none of this.

The pain did not leave him, and he lay senseless, his muscles still frozen in his protective position over Lee, by now whom was awake and fully conscious of himself despite the wringing and the agonizing pain in his hands and feet, where Naruto's body could not protect him.

"Naruto-kun…? Naruto-kun…!" Lee struggled out from under the blonde, but it was hard to move Naruto. He caught sight of Naruto's face, twisted in furious agony, slightly purple from his inability to fully breathe; but his eyes were still open, and he was silently mouthing something that Lee couldn't hear.

"Naruto-kun…what…why…?" Lee blustered. He stared in horror at Naruto's face, until he caught sight of the back of Naruto's head, and even though he was no stranger to the horrors of the battlefield he nearly choked on the contents of his own stomach.

All of the hair, skin and muscle had been completely burned from the back of Naruto's head and what little of his neck was visible over the collar of his black jacket. The bone was completely visible and had been burned charcoal black, even the tip of his spine where it connected to his head. Burns had mangled Naruto's ears and even crept around to his cheeks, oozing and gushing as Naruto shuddered in pain.

And yet Naruto was alive, clearly, and even as he watched, Lee could see the flesh healing.

"Get the fuck away…stupid…fuzzy-brows!" Naruto pushed himself away with a hacking cough, and Lee managed to scramble back, but did not get up. He glanced down, hissing when he saw nearly all of the skin had been burnt away, and beginning to shiver as the full pain hit him.

Wildly, he stared across the room. The dragon was moving again, shaking off a shower of sparks and biting out a snarl as it moved towards Naruto and Lee, who were unable to do much more than crawl back against the wall, Lee unable to use his hands or feet and Naruto only just beginning to regain feeling in his body as the damage to his spine began to heal. The dragon moved slowly, each step it took deliberate and powerful, yet somehow it gave the impression of restraint, as if it did not want to take those steps. Its black gaze had faded again, replaced with solemn grey. The snarls of rage died in its throat, but it continued to move.

That's when they hit it from behind, bursting from Undrig's _chakra shield._

'_Bubun Baika no jutsu'_

'_Kage Nui'_

'_Kyuukyoku Iku no jutsu'_

'_Hammer of Justice'_

'_Nouha Sayuu'_

'_Kaiten'_

'_Keikei Baiken no jutsu'_

The seven point-blank, completely unexpected attacks hit in quick succession, hammering the dragon into the wall with Chouji's, fixing it there with Shikamaru's coiling shadows and Ino's mindless fear, weakening it with Undrig's golden hammer and delivering three extremely devastating blows with Sakura's deadly punch, Neji's swirling_chakra wall_ and Tenten's army of blades; the red dragon was left senseless, amidst the rubble of half the chamber, smoking and littered with weapons, and still it began to struggle, the rage returning, its body beginning to thrash much harder than before.

Then Kakashi stepped up. He crouched low, his eyes narrowed, his Sharingan beginning to change, becoming darker, the three points widening to form a shuriken-like blade, spinning as fast as a fan until his eye seemed almost solid block.

'_Mangekyou Sharingan'_

The air began to distort, warping like metal in an intense heat until the entire area became focused through a prism, one point visible with everything else blurred. The focal point grew smaller and smaller, the edges darkening, nothing escaping the sudden feeling of being pulled apart inch by inch, drawn towards that one point. Not even sound escaped it—all was bitterly silent, the dragon's roars of pain dragged into the void along with the rest of its body, until there was nothing left, no lingering cries of relief or pain, just endless silence. The wall behind it had been pinched inwards, smooth and conical, as if shaped by a delicate sculptor.

There was still perfect silence.

Soft, painless, silence.

* * *

"Where does that place end up?"

"I don't know. Nowhere, maybe," said Kakashi. "Maybe everywhere. Sakura, how're they doing?"

Sakura glanced up from where she was bent over Lee. "I don't know, Kakashi-sensei. Lee-kun's going to need some time to rest, but—"

"We don't have much time. Do you think he can heal on the move?"

She bit her lip. "Heal? Maybe—I don't know how much he'll be able to recover in the time it takes us to get there. But, Naruto, if you mind?" She glanced at him.

Naruto nodded. The wounds on his back were completely gone, and even the hair had grown back to its normal length; all that remained of the horrible burns was a layer of peeling, dead skin that Naruto was busily flaking off all over his pristine black coat, which looked as new as when he had first had it made.

"Did you know it was fire-resistant, Naruto?" Shikamaru said.

Naruto glanced at him. "Yeah. Looks like I gotta get a hood, though…." He grinned.

They had not moved from the chamber and its lingering silence, using the rest of the dragon's airborne _chakra_ to replenish their own reserves. They had no idea how much time had passed, but the dragons, amazingly, seemed not to have noticed the disturbance. But, Kakashi wasn't daring to hope that they would never; if the Lord of Blackrock Spire was as powerful as everyone seemed to say, it would have certainly noticed the extraordinary amount of _chakra _released all at once, from the red dragon's attacks as well as their own. But so far, he was impressed at how well they were doing. They were lucky that the first dragon they had met, while not friendly, had at least made the fight as easy as it possibly could.

"Sad way fer a red ta' go…" Undrig muttered. He sat propped against a wall, frowning. "Did anyone know 'is name?"

"No," said Kakashi. "Why should that matter?"

"They aren' usually our enemies," said Undrig. "Smart 'uns, the reds are, friendly ta' all races, save the Blacks. I know it was cause o' Nefarian, but I just wanted ta' know, it seems like we shoulda known 'is name, 'e was that pitiful."

"Too late now." The dragon's final resting place caught Kakashi's eye again, however, and he felt compelled to look. "A prayer, perhaps?"

Undrig nodded, and stood up, waddling over to where the dragon had once stood. He bent down and began to mutter words in his throaty language, crossing himself thrice, before standing up again.

Naruto stood up, and shakily walked over to the ruined stonework that Undrig stood by. The boy stood up straight, clapped his hands together, and uttered a soft prayer. Then, he said:

"We'll makes this bastard pay for you as well, don't worry about that!"

"Naruto-kun…" Lee suddenly spoke up. He lay next to Sakura, biting his lip.

"Yeah?"

"Forgive me."

Naruto shrugged. "Nothing to forgive—just don't be stupid, okay?"

"I was angry," said Lee, softly. "I should not have been, not in such a situation as that. I would have killed me, had you not been—"

"So you're sorry for needing my help? We're part of a team, fuzzy brows. It's what friends do, isn't it?"

Lee gave a soft nod, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. Naruto stared at him for a few seconds, then shook his head and got to his feet, brushing more dead skin from his scalp. He made a hand seal.

'_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu'_

The clones crowded around Lee, and lifted him gingerly up according to Sakura's whispered instructions, taking care not to disturb his arms or legs too much. When he was in a relatively comfortable position that allowed Sakura to work on him at the same time, Naruto turned to Neji.

"Which way?"

"As the dragon said," Neji said, "there is a passage that leads higher up the mountain—it passes a large room, that is now empty, which sits beside an open terrace, and then moves up a few hundred feet to a much larger room, with another, even larger terrace."

"Then let's go. We'll move slowly. If it's as empty as you say it is then we should have no trouble. Is there anybody on the second terrace?" Kakashi said, brushing some soot from his shoulder.

Neji squinted.

"Yes."

Kakashi blinked. "What is it?"

"A man, or perhaps not. I think it is our target…but, I can barely see him." Neji squinted again, and then shook his head, his eyes widening.

"It's too dark. He's…too dark."

* * *

What glorious, glorious pain.

Nefarian grinned; so he had died like a cur, had he? Died as he had lived, a slave to his weakness, nameless, and forgotten. First under the claw of the bitch in red, then under Nefarian's, and now dead at the hands of some filthy humans, begging for death? Was that how they lived, then?

Disgusting.

Nefarian hauled himself up. The wound did not hurt so much anymore, now more an ache than the fierce pain of the night before, still nothing compared to the pain in his veins, ever burning even though there was nothing left in him to burn, just hollow ruins. His bones began to crack, and his vision began to distort; suddenly, he now appeared a man again, dressed in black robes thrown over silver and black armor, his face wizened but regal, his smile as crooked as a broken skull's. He made his way slowly across the room, not daring to let himself falter, for the wound was great even in his illusionary form, and he dared not show weakness, not even to the wind or the earth. At the very back of his plateau, carved deep into the mountain, there was a throne forged of black iron, crude and simple, effective for his guise. After all, humans were but simple creatures, were they not? Simple forms, simple minds, simple dreams and beliefs; were the ones who had slain Vaelastrasz not here for one, simple thing?

He sat upon the throne, and felt momentary relief from the pain and exertion of living. It returned quickly, but that moment had been enough. Enough to prepare him for what was to come.

So Let Them Come, he thought. They Will Do Nothing…

One of them wore the skin of his sister, he could smell it. This would be interesting. A human who could match the strength of the Great Black Dragonflight? Or not? There was something different about that human…

But it yet made his veins boil to the point of eruption; smoke billowed from his mouth, the ground began to shake and crack. His smoldering orange eyes, the only thing he kept from his true form, began to blaze as furiously as if magma were boiling within him.

He'd Pay.

The Black Dragonflight—No, _His_ Dragonflight, Was Invincible, And He Would Prove That. For Invincibility Was The Word That Suited Them, Suited Him, Because It, Like Pain, Was Perfect In Form, No Matter What It Looked Like. And It Was Always True To Those Who Deserved Its Blessing, And It Could Never Die.

He Was No God.

He Was A Dragon.

A Black Dragon, The Earthborn, Slayer Of Ragnaros, King Of The Earth And What It Held Beneath.

King Of Hell…

A shiver of power ran through his feet, felt throughout the mountain, maybe throughout the land, maybe beyond that to those that listened.

Wherever I Fly Is Hell…

Myself Am Hell…

* * *

The first room was empty; it was hardly furnished, a ruin made entirely of black stone with a single entrance that led onto a small terrace overlooking what remained of the Burning Steppes. Perhaps when the Dark Iron Dwarves had been absolute rulers of this place, they had used it to gaze upon their lands in triumph. It might have been a dining hall for the Emperor and Empress, but they must have had minimalist tastes because there was hardly any decoration at all. Several passages, most of them too small for a dragon to fit through, some of them even hard for a human to get through, branched off the room, which Neji said led into various other parts of the mountain, probably just as unused as this room.

Everyone was silent as they entered the room, but nobody was prepared. All of them were just beginning to realize how close they were. Some of their hearts boiled with determination and rage, but most felt fear, for they were still stepping into an unknown. For all they could plan, this was the most uncertain part. They were going to face a dragon, a thing of legend in their world, and it had already proved to be more than they could manage.

They said nothing, moving quickly through the chamber, towards the biggest, sloping path. It grew hotter, as if they were ascending towards the sun, and with each step their wings grew looser, more fragile as the wax melted, feathers tapering off with each step. Neji kept his eyes trained on the dark figure above them, his eyes squinted; it was strange to look at. He couldn't quite understand it, even now, as he got closer towards it.

How could one thing have so much darkness within it?

He didn't even understand the darkness—was it _chakra?_ Or was the creature itself darkness? What made it look like that? As he got closer, he saw more definition to the figure that did not seem to be there. Eyes, for one thing. Those were the most prominent features. Orange like flames, lava flowing in a constant vortex, with a center of soulless black.

He could see nothing else.

Kakashi led them, Naruto right by his side and the other members of the main attack group behind him. Lee had already recovered enough to start moving—the wounds were healing far more quickly than normal, something Kakashi attributed to the red dragon's borrowed _chakra_.

"We're almost there," said Neji.

"Everyone in position," muttered Kakashi.

The group reorganized—Naruto, Chouji and Lee up front, Kakashi, Shikamaru, Undrig, Neji and Tenten ten feet behind them, and Ino and Sakura right behind them. The attackers went first, keeping their heads low but moving quickly. The others slowly followed, Neji's eyes trained on their opponent's unseen face.

At last, the passage leveled off, and they were standing in a small, circular antechamber. A cavernous tunnel, filled with the blowing wind, stood to their left so that the black-orange skies were visible. It led out onto a massive platform, bare of a ceiling so that the effect of being among the heavens was completed; there were no walls, no furniture, nothing but a few toppled pillars and the smell of sulfur. It was blank, yet dark and hot, even with the rushing wind.

Neji flitted to the head of the group.

"To your left. He sits upon a thrown embedded in the wall of the mountain, just as you come out onto the plateau."

Naruto nodded. "Right."

"Kakashi-sensei says to take it easy. When you see him, do not attack immediately. See what happens. When you think you have a chance, take it—he trusts your judgment."

"Right."

Neji turned to the other two. "You follow him."

They both nodded. Fear seemed nonexistent. They were about to plunge, and they could be no more ready than if the dragon was right in there in front of them.

Neji departed. Naruto started forwards.

The winds blew heavily on the plateau, attacking Naruto's jacket and hair in an attempt to lift them from his person, and making him sway slightly from the effort of standing up. He didn't stumble, though, as he, Chouji and Lee walked out a little ways, and abruptly turned, to face their opponent where he was buried in a separate chasm, to the left of the entrance. They could see nothing at first—vague forms that could have been more ruined pillars and debris, and a tall structure near the back, pyramid-shaped, so dark it could have been night contained.

Then Naruto felt it. Like a nightmare given life, the killing intent washed over them so suddenly that terror froze their bodies solid.

A figure stood upon the structure, now a throne made of simple black iron. It was an old, gaunt man, vaguely regal in appearance but haggard and sickly-looking, as if fighting internal agony and barely lucid because of it. Underneath his fiery eyes were deep black bags, and the black armor he wore was shabby and dented. His beard was untrimmed and wild and as he moved forwards, he did so with a slight limp.

But even with his awful appearance, his weak limp and his uncanny resemblance to a homeless wino buried in the junk of one of the smaller towns bordering Konoha, Naruto had never felt such killing power in someone's eyes. He couldn't breath. Terror nearly consumed him, nearly drove him back as far as the ledge, which he would've happily leapt from to escape the horror, but every muscle in his body had frozen and would not obey a single one of his conscious commands.

"_**So, It Is You?"**_ His voice was strange, each word carrying more power than it should, like each one was a work of art that needed great care in being delivered.

Naruto did not find the words to answer.

"_**The Human Who Killed My Sister, And Now Wears Her Skin?"**_ The man was not scowling; his face was wiped of emotion.

Naruto found his voice. He managed, "Yeah…"

"_**Good,"**_ the man said. "_**You Have Come To Kill Me Too? For The Death Of Your Friend? That Human? I Can Feel The Others That Were With Him, I Even See Two By Your Side. You Wish To End Me? Do You?"**_

Naruto was shaking.

"_**Do You?"**_

The words fell from Naruto's mouth.

"Fuck yes."

No two words could have carried more power. Movement returned, the fear driven away, and suddenly the man did not face three scared children but three determined young men, itching for a fight.

"_**Fuck?"**_ The man tasted the word. He hadn't heard it before—a human word. Disgusting.

"_**If That Is The Case…" **_the man spat. It hissed on the ground, melting the rock it touched. The pallid, emotionless face then broke into an infernal smile. The ground began to shake, and then sound filled the air—rushing wings and snarling, crunching jaws—and the orange sky was blotted out by a mass of shadows, which Naruto just barely registered behind him.

"_**Then Let The Games Begin!"**_

* * *

I apologize for the lateness—I was laid low with an ague for the past two weeks and couldn't do much to get my thoughts together. It might show it in the chapter, but I'll try my best to perfect it.

Hope you enjoyed the Vaelastrasz battle. You'll realize why it's important soon enough.

I realize that I've been getting slower and slower with the updates, and that's true—but I've a lot of work to do this semester, and real-life always comes first. I'll continue to try and put them out every week, but I don't know if that'll be possible until summer hits…we'll see…

Hope you guys enjoy the chapter, and see you soon!

General Grievous

**_Scroll of Seals:_**

_Suiton: Suigadan (Water Release: Water Fang Bullet)_**  
**

_Bubun Baika no jutsu (Partial Multi Size Technique)_

_Kage Nui (Shadow Sewing)_

_Kyuukyoku Iku no jutsu (Ultimate Fear Technique)_

_Nouha Sayuu (Brainwave Domination)_

_Keikei Baiken no jutsu (Piercing Multi Sword Technique)_

_Words Of Power_

_**Bingo Book:**_

**Vaelastrasz the Corrupt/ The Red (Dragonkin)(Boss): **Doomed to a constant struggle between servitude and pain, Vaelastrasz serves his last days in the battle against Ragnaros, and then upon hearing of the humans' escape, resolves that they might end his pain and finish Nefarian for good. Not only does he possess an enormous body and nearly invincible scales, as well as fiery breath and _chakra_ to spare, but he can generate a monstrous amount of heat and send it in all directions, clearing away his foes around him. But his mind is not totally lost, and thus he possesses a great technique for those that challenge him, to further help them end his own pain caused by the black, corrupt blood that flows through him. Slain (possibly?) by a combination of efforts of the shinobi team.

**Nefarian (Dragonkin)(Boss): **Lord of Blackrock, Destroyer of Ragnaros, Lord of the Chromatic and Black Flights. Ambitious, terrible, and hateful of all mortal races. Abilities unknown.

**Black Flight (Dragonkin)(Elite): **The remainders of the Black Fight, fresh from the battle with Ragnaros. Number in the hundreds.


	32. Nefarian

_Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft, haven't been paid to write this, and don't own the characters under the copyright of both those above watchamcallits. In any case, this is as good a time as any to plug **Reviewing: I know you hate it when I bitch about it, but it only takes like two seconds, which I know is an exaggeration (more like ten, depending on your connection speed) but that's irrelevant!** Please guys? Pwetty please? Sugar on top? Chocolate? Num nums?_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

The cave was in perpetual darkness, bereft of the fiery life it once held. The life that it had sheltered for decades since he had made the foolish mistake of challenging a god, of trying to destroy a demon that could not be destroyed by determination and righteousness alone, was now gone.

Now mostly ruins, the cave seemed at peace. The thrashing, pained soul it had once housed had flown from it, thrust far off to another land or another time. It left only stains in the walls and the cracked floor and the ruined ceiling. Lingering stains that only those who had the ability to _feel_ could see.

Then a light, dim and distant, appeared towards the back; next to the most ruined section of the circular wall, the source of the tributary of cracks and crevasses that lined the ground and ceiling, in the center of a small funnel-like patch which was perfectly smooth and quite unlike the chaos of the rest of the wall.

The light grew brighter, steadily, like a woodpile catching fire. Then, when there was enough to light a small section of the room, it exploded, growing huge and roaring like a wildfire. It was bright and white-hot, and was not like normal fire; it did not seem chaotic and wild, but controlled and purposeful. It snaked along the floor, picking up speed as it neared the opposite wall, which it struck.

Then it pulled back, and struck again.

And again.

And again, until the wall cracked and began to break, and the flames were able to sneak through, into the dark maze of the mountain. It knew where to go, up, that's all it needed to do. That's all it knew.

Go up.

Up.

* * *

Dragons were everywhere. They filled the sky, blocking it out with their huge, glittering bodies—all black with a shimmering rainbow sheen. Teeth gnashed, fire plumed, the stench was awful—like sweat and flames and other unsavory things, none of which the younger shinobi would have experience with. They circled the plateau, moving in a spiraling upwards storm, all around Naruto, Lee and Chouji.

The latter two stared around them in horror, but Naruto kept his eyes on the man before them, who was rapidly becoming less of one—his body began to swell, his face changing from gaunt to a terrible black, his grin growing wider and more toothy and his eyes growing larger, the fiery essence becoming blacker, swirling pits of flame and black stone and smoke. His body cracked and shattered until the human proportions were all but gone, replaced with a huge, four-legged body, steel-sharp claws and flaming orange plumage across its sides and framing its head. Its black wings spread out, and the shadow already cast by its brethren (children?) darkened around the three shinobi, blotting out the sound of rushing air and snarling dragons above them.

"_**So Shall We Begin? Perhaps, Warriors, You Should Come At Me All At Once?" **_Nefarian's voice had not changed—still the emphasis, the power contained within each word. But as the words echoed, Naruto felt himself come to a decision.

They had to hit him hard, fast, and _now!_

Chouji and Lee seemed to have reached the same conclusion. Chouji charged back, raising a hand; Lee charged forwards, his speed less frightening than before, but still more impressive than something like Nefarian could match—the green-clad shinobi struck out at the dragon's side, towards its right wing.

Nefarian swiftly turned—like a leaf whirled violently by the wind, he was suddenly facing Lee, who stopped his charge, and made to move back. Nefarian's claw flashed out.

But Naruto was there again—his blade came out, shimmering blue, and blocked Nefarian's cleaving attack cold; the dragon was surprised—there was little on this earth that could defeat a black dragon's strength, for they were of the earth and the strongest of the Dragonflights. Yet a small, skinny human, had somehow managed it?

But then he felt it—the power within the blade. Hard, determined, _strong_. Not human at all.

He grinned.

"_**Your Dwarven Blade Is Strong—But No More."**_

Another claw came, just as quick—Naruto clutched his sword in both hands, and swung to meet it, a sliver of blue _chakra_ illuminating the surface of the blade.

The claw struck, and the blade shattered.

Naruto was too surprised to react—the sight of the cloud of glittering metal about him, and the weightless feeling in the hilt that felt so familiar in his hand stunned him to a point where he offered no defense to Nefarian's attack; the claws tore through flesh and bone, and would have finished moving through Naruto had Lee not wrenched him back in tandem with the claw's swipe and Chouji not come from behind, punching Nefarian in the side with a fist as tall as the dragon was long.

Nefarian howled, and stumbled back; he began to roar, and bits of black, smelling of fire and sulphur began to dribble from beneath him, hissing as they touched the ground. Chouji did not linger, moving quickly to Lee and a bleeding and barely-conscious Naruto.

"Naruto-kun…!" Lee gasped. "Are you…?"

"'ll be fine," Naruto mumbled, through gritted teeth. His face was between pure agony and fatigued haze, and he began to shake as blood pooled at his feet. "Fucking thing broke my sword…"

Nefarian's roars grew softer and his blood stopped flowing onto the stone. Then the dragon suddenly howled:

"_**Go My Children! Destroy Them! Make These Fools See Our Might, See What the Black Flight Has Become, What It Will Always Be! Come! Fall Upon Them With All Of Your Might So That They Return To DUST!"**_

The cloud above them went still, but only for a moment. Then it fell, like the ceiling of a crumbling cavern, towards the plateau and the three shinobi.

"MOVE!"

The command came from somewhere else, where the sound wasn't quite so wild, and the world wasn't quite so black. Despite his pain, Naruto latched onto Lee and Chouji, and used _Kazaashi_, and even with the increased weight he swerved around Nefarian and made for the entrance to the platform, where the remaining shinobi poured out of, ready to aid their friends.

Kakashi and Undrig moved at the head, and Naruto stopped beside them, yet neither broke stride. The swarm of dragons spread out as they reached the ground, flowing upwards, with several breaking off like droplets of water, heading for the shinobi. Great blasts of fire, streams of ice, and bolts of lightning scarred the ground of the plateau as the shinobi moved to avoid the dragon's breaths. Kakashi and Undrig had stopped, and were looking up at the dragons.

"How're we gonna get them outta 'ere?" Undrig growled to the man.

Kakashi kept one eye on Nefarian, the other on the heavens. The dragon lord had not moved, and its eyes watched them keenly. Though not used to deciphering the facial expressions of dragons, Kakashi could see cunning in its narrowed eyes. It was thinking of something, wondering what they might do, perhaps wondering how to counter it.

"There's only one way," said Kakashi, looking up now, with both eyes. He clasped his hands together. He was shaking, excitement and fear rushed him on.

"Get ready to run, for the edge. You know how to grip ledges with _chakra_, right?'

"Aye, the boy taught me." His eyes were focused on Kakashi warily. "Whaddya mean ta'—"

"Good. Here goes."

Kakashi's _Sharingan_ began to widen and spin, until it was mostly black.

Behind him, the others had regrouped at the entrance of the cave. The dragons had not stopped their volley of breaths; poisonous green chemicals and gouts of magma had joined the flames, lightning and ice.

'_Kaiten'_

Neji's ultimate defense deflected the series of blast, but each time a little got through into the cave, and the small group had to avoid a flash of heat or a spray of frozen air. Sakura and Ino were farther back, healing Naruto's injury with everything they had.

"Already, Naruto…?" Sakura hissed, half in jest, half in true anger.

"Stupid mistake," Naruto muttered, grunting in pain. "Won't happen again."

"Wanna bet on that?" Ino growled. "You're almost done."

"Hurry," Shikamaru snapped. "Neji won't be able to keep this up."

"Where're Kakashi-sensei and Undrig-san?" Tenten shouted; she was trying to see what was happening outside, but couldn't see through Neji's constant walls of opaque, blue _chakra_.

"Dunno," Chouji said. "They were out there, but what were they…?"

They all felt it, suddenly—a familiar tug of the air, as if everything was being dragged away, bit by bit, and then a howling sound, and then no sound at all. The dragon's attacks abruptly ceased, and so did Neji.

Kakashi had removed approximately one half of the swarm of dragons, who had been so tightly condensed in their mass that once he had struck it, those in the middle had not been able to escape the vacuum of his _Mangekyou Sharingan_. The chaos had been immeasurable; the swarm of dragons had split up into a wild frenzy—terrified, furious, and confused, they were now scattered across the heavens flying in every possible direction, searching for their suddenly missing comrades, or perhaps just attempting to avoid another such attack.

Nefarian had seen it, and had seen the man abandon his position, moving towards the edge.

"_**My Children," **_he said, "_**There Is The One. Follow Him, Seek Him Out, Destroy Him! He Who Has Slain Your Brethren! He Cannot Be Allowed To Survive! GO! WITH ALL HASTE!"**_

His words dissolved their confusion. The dragons regrouped, forming another, smaller, flight, and made for Kakashi and Undrig faster than before. But the man and dwarf had already leapt from the edge, descending into oblivion. They landed on the craggy mountainside, about forty feet below, using _chakra_ to grip the sheer surface. Above, they saw the mass of dragons spill over the side of the plateau, making straight for them.

"Get going! We have to outrun them!" Kakashi shouted. Undrig scrabbled away, into the cracks of the mountain, and Kakashi quickly followed.

And so did the dragons.

* * *

The platform seemed silent, the rush of wings and draconic bellows distant and fading. Only the wind remained, and the tired breathes of the remaining shinobi, alone.

"Where'd he go?" Chouji groaned aloud.

"I can't see him," Neji said, his _Byakugan _wide and searching.

"When did he leave?" Ino whispered, still recovering her breath from the exertion of healing Naruto's extensive wounds. The blonde was fighting fit, mostly thanks to his healing abilities. They had only needed to keep his blood cell count up and stop him from going into shock, while his _chakra_ sewed up most of the wounds, leaving only a few faint and fading scars.

"When the dragons went for Kakashi-sensei and Undrig-san," said Lee. He was breathing heavily and sweating despite the rushing wind.

"You alright Lee?" Neji grunted.

"I'm fine, Neji-kun," Lee said.

"Don't call me that," Neji snapped. "He's not here. Not anywhere."

"That's impossible. Did he join the other dragons?" Shikamaru grunted.

"No! They're circling the mountain, searching for Kakashi-sensei and Undrig-san! They'll be alright, for now—they're hiding in the crevasses, but these creatures aren't letting them stay in one place for long. I don't know how they're going to get rid of them…"

"Should we send someone after them?" Tenten asked.

"No," said Sakura. "We'll need to be here. This is the reason we came, isn't it?"

"Sakura-chan's right."

Naruto, his jacket buttoned to reduce the impact of another claw swipe, stood at the forefront of the group with Lee and Chouji, and was glaring into the sky. His body was rigid and still, but he was still ready. He turned to Shikamaru.

"You're right about his words. They do something—it's like what he says comes true. That's how he broke my sword, and how he got me and Chouji and Lee to attack so stupidly at the beginning." He clenched a fist. "We sticking with the original plan?"

"Unless you've got a better idea?" Shikamaru said.

"Not yet," said Naruto.

"Plan on having one soon?"

Naruto grinned. "Maybe."

"Well think fast," said Shikamaru. "We don't have much time."

"_**I Should Think Not."**_

The voice came on the rushing wind, and suddenly Nefarian was there as if forged of wind. He slashed down, his claws glinting like polished halberds, ruining the ground where they struck. The shinobi scattered, avoiding the claws, but they had to spread out around it. Nefarian moved with them, turning towards Naruto, Chouji and Lee. Orange eyes grew wide and a hideous cackle emerged from the dragon's throat.

"_**My Sister's Skin Shall Not Protect Thee, Human. She Is A Black Dragon, And Even In Death, They Bite."**_

Before Naruto could hurtle back a witty retort, hideous pain like a dozen blades pierced his upper torso and arms, biting so deep into his skin that blood began to ooze from his collar and cuffs. Naruto screamed, wrenching the jacket open and trying to pull it off, but it clung like a leech; Naruto screamed louder.

"Chouji, help!" Lee roared, grabbing Naruto's jacket and pealing it away with as much pain as if it were Naruto's skin. Chouji gripped the other side, all the while constantly pulling them both back, away from Nefarian. The dragon had opened his mouth, discharging a steady stream of rising heat and stinking sulfur, while a burnt orange light rose within his throat.

"Hurry!" Naruto snarled. With a final wrench, he tore himself free from the jacket, which Lee and Chouji tossed away. Then they ran, as a stream of black and orange fire exploded from Nefarian's mouth.

Flames clung to the black stone, and seemed to follow them as they ran, for Nefarian was moving with it, continuing the blazing trail. The fire spread into a field, pursuing them as voraciously as a predator, all around Nefarian, who laughed as only dragons could.

'_Kagemane no jutsu'_

Nefarian went still; it took all of Shikamaru's effort to keep the dragon from even moving its legs; he could not stop its head from turning, its baleful orange eyes focusing their killing intent fully on him.

"_**You Seek The Shadows, Boy? Odd, They Usually Seek You!"**_

Suddenly, Shikamaru was blind.

The shadows—which had always moved to his command, always been his greatest ally in battle—suddenly leapt up before him, opaque and black and smothering like a death shroud. He was lost, unable to move, feel, see, smell, hear—everything was suddenly gone. All was blackness before his eyes—smoky, inky blackness, like the inside of a coffin; not pure, but like shadows at the beginning of twilight. He tried to scream, but he couldn't even hear that.

Fear seized him. Fear unlike any other. He knew the dragon was right in front of him, right _there_, if he didn't move, he'd be torn apart, killed before the battle had barely begun! But he couldn't move so how was he supposed to? How the fuck was he supposed to move? His thoughts raced, becoming less coherent, less organized, chaotic, distressed, impossible. He tried moving back, but couldn't, tried moving even an arm, but couldn't. The sense of incoming doom was so powerful that he suddenly felt like just giving up. He'd be dead in a few seconds anyways, so why bother?

Then came a jarring force—powerful, but hardly painful. He'd been hit harder by Ino. In fact, it felt rather similar…

"WAKE THE FUCK UP, SHIKAMARU!"

Ino's voice broke his silence, and the world returned. The blackness was gone, and bright, orange light filled his eyes. He was standing, rigid as stone, and Ino was shouting in his ear. He could feel her _chakra_ snaking into him, and feel the sting of her palm on his cheek. Then the situation returned to him, and his surroundings hit him like a hammer.

Nefarian had moved away. Chouji and Lee had engaged him; Chouji was huge—he had grown at least twice the dragon's size, and was attempting to step on him, while Lee rushed around its feet, attempting to trip him with powerful blows to its joints. But Nefarian was like liquid, moving so effortlessly and gracefully that each attack did not even come close to striking or having any effect at all. Chouji was simply ruining their battlefield, and Lee exhausting himself further.

"What was that?" Ino was howling.

"What happened?"

"You spaced out! You were about to get your ass kicked until Chouji knocked him back."

"His words," said Shikamaru. "CHOUJI, WATCH OUT FOR WHAT HE SAYS! STOP HIM FROM SPEAKING!"

Chouji heard, and pulled back, rapidly shrinking, save for a single fist. He brought the fist up and then swung it down like a sledgehammer, as Nefarian moved back.

"_**Foolish, Fat, Human! You'll Be—" **_It cut its sentence with a roar, and Nefarian recoiled towards Chouji as a series of ivory blurs struck its back and left wing. Twice the size of normal _kunai_ and the color of Nefarian's claws, twelve of Tenten's gifted _kunai_ went deep into the dragon's scales, all the way up to their hilts. Nefarian roared ever louder, spread his wings and hurtled himself into the air. Black rain fell as he rose, melting the ground where he flew before he was gone, disappearing over the side of the platform.

They quickly regrouped, near the entrance again. They kept their eyes on all sides of the platform, while Sakura busily attempted to heal Naruto's fresh wounds.

"Don't waste your _chakra_, Sakura-chan," Naruto said, waving her off. "They'll fix themselves."

"Before you bleed to death, moron?" Sakura growled.

"Maybe."

"Now's not the time to joke," Shikamaru barked. He had regained his composure, but only just. "Neji?"

"He's gone again. I don't know what he does."

"His words again," said Shikamaru. "That's what I'd bet. We need to stop him from speaking. It's only a matter of time before he just orders us to die."

"If he could do that," Sakura said, "he already would have. I don't think he can, not without something that he doesn't have."

"What do you mean?"

"Words are his strength, right? Then surely names fall under that jurisdiction as well."

"Then he needs our names to kill us?"

"Maybe. Fits with the legends, at any rate—stop it, Naruto! I'm almost finished."

Naruto bristled, but nodded. He watched the black and orange flames die, and inhaled the lingering stench of sulfur that it had produced. He couldn't smell anything other than that, or hear anything other than the wind. What was he supposed to do? There was definitely a way out of this, even with Nefarian's speed and power; there was always a way out. He just had to find it, _see _it like he always did.

"But we've been shouting our names all over the place—if that was true, he could've—"

"Maybe he needs all of our names," Sakura went on. "I don't know, it's pure guesswork, but that's what it seems like."

"So just don't say our last names?"

"We gotta stop him from flying," Naruto muttered, stopping the conversation from going anywhere more pointless. "Keep him here."

"I agree," said Sakura. "He's an earth dragon, isn't he? That makes this stone platform a bit of a problem, especially when he can fly away."

"What about a summon…?" Tenten asked. "Naruto, do you think you could—"

"No time, no point," said Shikamaru. "And this isn't an open forum—we need to clip his wings. Tenten, do you still have some _kunai _that Naruto gave you?" She nodded. "Good, then we'll need your help, big time. Naruto—" Shikamaru took one of the trench knives from his pocket and tossed it to the blonde. "You've got a much better attack than I do with these. You're wind-_chakra_ based, right? Asuma used these to incredible effect with that. You do it too—go for his wings."

"Yeah," said Naruto. He gripped the blade tightly, and filled it with some _chakra_—it was less receptive than his old blade, but certainly worked. "Right," he said. "Let's go."

"_**Agreed."**_

They scattered—Nefarian emerged from beneath them, bursting like a black geyser from the stone, his claws flashing. As soon as he was up, he vomited another stream of flame, scorching the ground before him, driving the shinobi even farther back. The flames howled their rage, and spread like a flooded river.

"REGROUP!" Shikamaru shouted. Tenten, Neji and grouped at the center, Chouji, Lee and Naruto in front of them and Ino and Sakura at the back. Nefarian moved out of hole he had created, stomping through the flames without care or qualm. Naruto rushed through some seals.

'_Hyuuton: Hyoushi no jutsu'_

A plume of ice erupted from Naruto's mouth, cracking his dry lips as it spread out before him in a rolling smoke. It struck Nefarian in the face, covering it with a layering of frost; but the dragon easily shook it off and continued to move forwards.

But Chouji and Lee had already struck.

'_Bubun Baika no justu'_

'_Hachimon: Shimon'_

"Eat that, dragon-bastard!" Naruto roared.

Chouji's fist slammed into Nefarian's side, and with a grunt of effort Chouji thrust him to the left, where Lee launched a single flying kick laden with furious _chakra_ into Nefarian's right side. Crushed between the forces, Nefarian recoiled back and reared up on his hind legs, roaring at the sharp, delightful pain.

The sight before them was awesome: all along Nefarian's stomach, the scales had been ruined to the skin, where dried clumps of black blood and flaps of ruined skin barely concealed what was beneath—a furnace of fire, blood and pain.

What happened? Shikamaru wondered. Could that have been—?

Lee was grinning as he backed off, his gate closing and his stamina diving; Gai-sensei, you're amazing!

"NARUTO, TENTEN!" Shikamaru roared.

Naruto launched himself towards the right wing, Tenten to the left. Naruto made it to the wing before Nefarian could pull away, the trench knife glowing brilliantly blue. Tenten had all of her remaining _kunai_ drawn, clutched in the gaps between her fingers.

They attacked simultaneously, Tenten hurtling the daggers, Naruto chopping at the base of the wing with all of his strength. For just that one moment, hope swelled in him, palpable on the wind; they had—

Fire burst forth all around Nefarian—Naruto was blown back in a shock of pain and Tenten fled from her rebounded _kunai _with a cry, now no more than charred lumps. The flames were different—brighter, stronger, _deeper_ than Nefarian's. Older, as ancient as the stones and trees of the world; it was like white was to black, a corona of blinding light that made Neji shut off his _Byakugan_ and move away, his eyes shut and everyone else fling their hands over their eyes as something exploded into being.

"_**Fools…You Didn't Think, Did You?"**_

There was suddenly only Nefarian's voice. The flames had taken shape—a grinning skull, crowned and wreathed with white, green, red, orange and black, all at once, all as bright as sunlight.

"_**I Took From Ragnaros Everything That He Had—Even His Very Power, That Earthly Fire Which He So Petulantly Flaunted At ME. It Is Now Mine!"**_

The skull dissolved and the flames reformed solidly orange, yellow and white. It became a hammer as large as Nefarian's body with a head overgrown with ethereal stalactites glowing white-yellow and stinking like rotten eggs enough to make the smell a hindrance. It rose into the air, hanging above Nefarian like a miniature sun. The heat was visible in the distorted haze of the air, radiating outwards from the fiery hammer, which rose high into the air, inverted itself, and them plummeted to the ground.

"_**Taste The Flames Of Sulfuras."**_

It exploded on unoccupied earth, releasing a sweltering blast of air and wild light across the platform, throwing everyone on their feet to the shaking ground.

Naruto scrambled up, summoning some _Kage Bunshin _to protect him from the debris showering the rest of the platform. In the confusion, Naruto kept his eyes on Nefarian, but the dragon was not moving, making no attempt to capitalize on their distress. He stood at the edge of the corona of light, all black save for his eyes, which somehow kept their fiery color even in the presence of a much brighter light.

They seemed to drink it, swallowing the bright light like a thirsty traveler.

A giant hole was left in the center when the light died and the smoke had been wafted away by the blustery winds, the molten hammer floating within it. It then returned to Nefarian's side, immaterial as liquid fire. The other shinobi were scattered about the crater, separate once more.

"LEE!"

Naruto jerked at Tenten's shrill cry. On the far side of the crater he saw them, Tenten crouched over Lee, who lay unmoving on the black earth, partially covered with rocks. Naruto couldn't see much, but his breath hitched at the sight, even as Lee continued to move, writhing in pain, screaming out incoherently.

Tenten clutched Lee by the shoulder, tighter than was comfortable for Lee, but neither of them noticed. She was shaking and crying to him but she couldn't even understand what she was saying, staring at Lee's legs. They were a mess of burns and gushing blood, and were shaking like the spasms of two dying men. Lee had bit his lip, and tried to stop his screaming with everything he had. Gai-sensei wouldn't scream, Gai-sensei would—

"Stay down, Lee!" Tenten cried, she pushing him back and dragging him away from the bed of rocks he lay upon. "You can't move anymore, you can't—"

"To slow…" Lee gasped, "Used it too many times, couldn't get out of the way fast enou—"

"You used the Fourth Gate three times, Lee!" she cried, desperately, "Of course you would—"

"Thought the dragon's _chakra_ would help, I felt better, I really—" He bit back another cry of pain, and then went silent as he passed out.

"No, Lee, don't pass out, no, stay awake, please!" Tenten wailed.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto roared.

Sakura was already moving, shooting across the platform in a rosy blur, towards where Lee lay.

And Naruto turned his attention back to Nefarian.

The dragon was staring at him.

"_**Come, Come!"**_ it said. _** "Show Me What You Can Do!"**_

He's doing that on purpose, Naruto thought. He kept still; the dragon was unmoving, its lips pulled back in a grinning snarl. The hammer Sulfuras rose skywards again, and Naruto knew that if the platform took another hit like before it would collapse along with their chance of victory. They couldn't fight Nefarian in the air, and it was a long way down to another suitable battleground. They couldn't fight for much longer, either—Nefarian was almost constantly keeping them off balance, separate, making their teamwork ineffective and always bringing in new tricks. He was doing exactly what he should, and Naruto had done nothing to the contrary.

He wasn't living up to his name as Konoha's Number One Most Surprising, And Annoying, Shinobi.

Well fine, he thought. If he wants to play like that, then I can to.

He grinned.

A plan started to form.

* * *

"Are they still out there?"

"Can' ye hear 'em?"

Kakashi nodded. "Just checking."

"Ye alrigh'? Ye look a bit peaky."

"I don't know what that means."

"Weak, ill, or somethin'."

Kakashi reached up, and touched his covered _Sharingan_ eye. In the darkness of the crevasse they were hidden in, he could barely see his own hand as he retracted it. "Using that technique does more than just drain _chakra_, it appears. I thought it might, but it seemed like the only way."

"How're you planning to keep 'em occupied, then? They won' wait out there fer long."

"I wouldn't bet on that," said Kakashi. "You heard what their master said, didn't you?"

"Told 'em to get us."

"And until they do, I'm willing to bet they won't stop."

"Don' seem like dragons to me."

"What do you mean?"

Undrig leaned back, shifting to get himself a better position. It was hard, however, with dozens of jagged stones digging into his back and buttocks. Each way he shifted seemed to locate a dozen more places on his ass to be injured.

"Dragons," he muttered, "are smart. Like us, you know, sentient. They gotta a lot longer to live as well, so they're way more experienced than us, and I don' think they'd follow somethin' that blindly, not without questionin' it."

"You said they were strange dragons, right?"

"Aye," he grunted. "Black, but not, at least some o' them. They got way too many breaths ta—"

"Breaths? You mean those fireballs and things they were attacking with?"

"Aye. They got one for every color—green's got acid, blue ice, red is fire, you know, all that. They got all o' that, an' that ain't right. I dunno how they got that."

"Then they must not be dragons."

"They're dragons, 'ave you seen 'em? Not normal dragons, though. Not at all."

Kakashi nodded, frowning. "Could they be an entirely different flight? You said a lot of dragons died down in the Core—and you said that these ones look different. Could they not be black at all?"

"Maybe…" Undrig wrinkled his nose. "'Old on."

"What?"

"Just remembering something the red one said, down there—just remembered it. He called Nefarian the lord o' the Blacks and somethin' like the Cromarik or Crimatic or Chrom—somethin' flight."

"Ever heard of it?"

"Nah."

"Then that's what we're looking for." Kakashi straightened himself, and tried to stand. But his body began to tremble, making him sit once more.

"Calm down," Undrig said. "We can ne fight that many dragons."

"We might," said Kakashi.

"'Ow?"

"How do you think they were created?"

"Dinna ken," the dwarf said. "No way ta. But they're not made the normal way—dragon breedin' don' work like that. 'E wouldn' been able ta' get 'is 'ands on the eggs o' the other dragon fligh's so easily. Nah, must be some other way—why?"

"If they were made differently, then surely they aren't the same as normal dragons, right?"

"Aye, we already ken that!"

"I'm saying maybe they're structured differently—maybe they're bodies are different."

"'Ow da ye figger?"

"It's a hunch, a big one, but a hunch nonetheless. Their bodies may be different, less durable maybe, than the other dragons. Maybe they can be killed easier. I remember Naruto said he fought a group of dragons once, not the last time, but before that—I wish I'd paid more attention, he tends to exaggerate on many of his stories, so I tuned out most of them…"

"Aye…I know the feelin'," Undrig said.

"Either way, though, he might've had something there—maybe they are easier to kill, at least compared to normal dragons."

"Tha's a real longshot. 'Ow do you propose ta do tha'?"

"An experiment."

"Ah, never been much inta those—always left 'em ta tha alchemists…"

"Nor I, but I know enough about one to conduct one. I just hope I have the _chakra_ to do it."

"Need some o' mine?"

"Can you do that?"

"Aye, it'll be a bit 'arder for ye to manage, but I think ye can 'andle it."

"Good then. Let's begin."

* * *

A dark shape, so black that from afar it would be just another jagged outcropping of the Spire, as still as death, listened to the frustrated growls of the Chromatic Flight far below as they desperately sought their human prey.

They were like infants. Utterly loyal, but so easy to throw a tantrum when they did not have their way. And so brittle, too. They had not the power of the creatures they were born from, not the strength that made the dragons what they were. In some ways it was counterintuitive to what Nefarian wanted, but a few lies did nothing to hurt him. After all, they had done their job, were easy to create and were just as deadly as a true dragon when compacted into their flightless humanoid forms, the drakonids.

Or so Flamegor wanted him to believe.

While Nefarian had done the most work on the creation, Flamegor had watched them grow and develop. He had tested their faults and knew everything about them. They were not dragons, but insects given a dragon's shape. Disgusting, useless things that did not deserve to be associated with the Black Flight, the strongest of them all.

But then again, neither had his brothers. Ebonroc and Firemaw had lost their lives in the confusion of the underworld battle just days ago. But to have lost against the lifeless golems of Ragnaros was a fitting end for the greedy and the brash. They had not been clever, not like him. Raw strength only took one so far, but there was no limit to guile. His master had taught him that.

He had to admit, though, his master was not as clever as him…

The living darkness shuddered as a rush of pain ran through him, punishing him for his thoughts. He accepted it, and his shadowy mouth opened to reveal a toothy grin as the pain died away. That was all _he_ could do, was it? Pain? Pain was his whole life. By adding more, it did not change a thing.

The growls grew louder below him. He'd wait. They would doubtlessly find the humans eventually and rend them to bits. He'd just wait and see what happened. How good would the humans do? Would they destroy the cannon fodder, put up a fight? They had already dealt with the Red, but then again, he had given them his help. They could not have done it without that. Foolish, weakling Red.

He could smell them. Smell the desperation on their skin and in their breaths. He'd wait, just a little longer, maybe. Give them a chance. Like ants attempting to scurry away back to their hole, while he watched, knowing that at any time…

His void-black body shivered with restraint. That ancestral hate and its brother pain coursed through him anew. Soon.

Just a little longer…

* * *

"_**Humans, Is This All That You Can Muster? This Feared Power That Destroyed My Sister Is Nothing After All! What Can You Do? Come Then, Warriors—Strike Me! I Dare Thee!"**_

Naruto resisted the urge to rush at the beast—it took everything he had. It was like trying to stop himself from going to the bathroom right in front of a toilet. He bit his lip until it bled and tried to focus all of his attention on his friends. They were similarly engaged.

Chouji was gripping the ground with both hands, actively restraining his large body from moving from where it was. Neji was shaking, his face knotted in effort and covered in sweat. Lee was trying to get up and failing, as Sakura pushed him down and continued to heal him, shouting something that was lost in the rushing wind and the crackling of Nefarian's Ragnaros-fire.

Why the hell were only some of them affected by it? He noticed that neither Sakura nor Ino, nor even Tenten, were trying to restrain themselves. Shikamaru wasn't either; the boy was watching Nefarian from afar, obviously trying to do the same as Naruto. It had something to do with what it said—warriors, maybe? Maybe it only worked for those that considered themselves warriors? But that didn't make sense, did it—surely Shikamaru or Tenten would think the same?

He shook his head, suppressing the wandering thoughts; he had a plan now, so he'd use it. It might give them a chance.

Scratch that—it definitely _would_.

He made the necessary seals.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu'_

Nefarian's attention was otherwise occupied—as a plume of smoke burst into being around Naruto, the dragon was shouting again.

"_**Healers, You Have Yet To Come And Play—Perhaps If You Were Oppositely Inclined, You Might Make This Fight A Little More Interesting!"**_

Lee began to scream. Sakura jerked back from the shock, eyes wide, but Ino continued healing, thinking Lee's pain was from his wounds.

"Ino!" Sakura bellowed, grabbing her arm.

"What are you—"

"You're hurting him!" Sakura said, suddenly up, glaring at Nefarian.

But the dragon was not looking at them any longer, it's attention moved back across the platform to where wafts of chilling air now mixed with the uncomfortable heat. The air became claustrophobic, humid, and no less unpleasant; but then again, the beast that had arrived was no less dangerous or ferocious than the one that already dwelled there.

"_**WE MEET AGAIN, BRAT? AND YOU'VE BROUGHT ANOTHER BLACK DRAGON FOR ME TO PLAY WITH—YOU'RE EVER SO KIND!"**_

Submerged in his icy cloud and breathing his deep, chilling voice like a sundered glacier, Boreagos emerged from the blue-tinged smoke with Naruto riding on his back. The boy was half-grinning, half-uneasy, as if he expected the frost wyrm to make some request for his services.

Nefarian did not seem surprised, over even impressed. The Ragnaros-fire grew brighter, bigger around him, and he began to laugh like distant thunder.

"_**A Fallen Blue? Disgusting Wretch, Do You Think You Have A Place Here?"**_

Boreagos spread his wings, and launched himself forwards, blue smoke trailing behind him like a cloak. Its answer was contained within a jet of super-frozen air, streaming like blue fire from its mouth.

"_**MORE THAN YOU DO, BASTARD SON OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN FORGOTTEN! I'LL SHOW YOU THE BENEFITS OF DEATH, AND HOW DELIGHTFUL THEY CAN BE!"**_

The stream of ice dispersed in a burst of steam when it met a wall of bright white flames, and Nefarian's eternal smile.

"_**Those Who Have Been Forgotten? Never Forgotten, Not Within Me, Never! Pull Back, Fallen One, Return To The Whore That Bound You, And Let Me Annihilate These Humans ALONE!"**_

Boreagos exploded, vanishing in a cloud of his frozen fog. Naruto was thrown forwards from the sudden stop, landing face-first on the ground mere yards from where the black dragon stood, glaring down at him.

"_**My Sister's Death Is Strong On You," **_Nefarian said, his mouth opening in a great yawn. "_**Just Die, Human."**_

Naruto could hardly blink before the flames were upon him, deep and endless and agonizing for one brief moment, before it was gone.

* * *

An explosion ripped into the chaotic, beating flight of dragons. One saw a glint of metal, issued from somewhere within the crevasses of the mountain, another saw it strike one of their own, ricocheting off the scales of its chest but not a second later exploding and tearing the chromatic dragon apart in a hollow discharge and a spray of dark blood and shattered bones and meaty limbs, which fell in a smoking heap thousands of feet below. Then they went wild, and all of them saw where it came from, all of them _knew_ it, and attacked.

The mountain was rocked with a salvo of different breaths—acid, lightning, flames both white hot and dark as coal, and ice impacted the mountain in loud, jarring blasts. They destroyed the spot where the weapon had emerged first and then moved along the mountain in a line, carving a jagged path in the stone that the dwarves would have cried at, and sending an avalanche of debris hurtling to the earth below.

When they had finished a few of them flew and perched onto the ruined rock, sniffing and snarling and glaring until they found any trace of their opponents. Their father would want them dead, and they could not return until they were dead. More followed, crashing into the ruined cliff face and shoving their angular heads into every crack they could fit them in, sniffing and huffing and searching.

Somewhere far below that, Kakashi made a small triumphant noise without opening his mouth or moving his lips.

"Wha' was tha'?" Undrig said, trying to pull himself up to see the spectacle above them with a little more clarity from within the new crack they had hidden themselves in.

"The only way I can express joy," said Kakashi.

"Random sounds?"

"Aye."

"Did ye just say—never mind. Ye were righ'."

"And we discovered something new, as well."

"Wha's that?"

"They move as one unit, not as individuals—like a swarm of bees or an army of ants. I don't know if that's in their nature or because of what Nefarian said, but—"

"Wha' da we do now, then? More o' those clones or yours?"

"No, neither of us have enough _chakra_ to do that. We'd have to be Naruto. No, I have a better plan, though it requires us splitting up, and a hell of a lot of danger for both of us."

"More than now?"

"Aye."

"Stop tha'."

"Sorry. But yes, a considerable amount more, considering that we will not be together."

Undrig pushed away, deeper into the crevasse. "Well, le's 'ere it."

"Since when did 'ear' become a verb? And who's Les?"

"Yer pickin' a fine time to start jokin', laddie."

"Aye. Before death, there's no better time."

Undrig fell silent.

"Aye. Nothin' more true."

* * *

The swarm came together again, the results of their search fruitless. Anger buzzed throughout them, their cavernous roars in a set rhythm like a perfectly coordinated orchestra launching into the finale of their piece. The stench of molten rock and acrid smoke wafted from the ruined mountainside, feeding their frenzy. Where were they? Where had that human and that dwarf gone?

The growling reached a crescendo. A few dragons broke off, making towards the top of the mountain. They did not quite make it.

Silver blurred from far below them—not a single sliver, but a rain of iron like a summer's downpour. Before the swarm could react explosions were already rocking them, blowing apart huge masses of their formation and sending their brethren in pieces careening to the distant ground. The swarm scattered in every direction, but the silver did not stop—two constant streams of blades flowed from separate points on the mountain from deep within the cracks in the volcanic material, one haphazardly directed wherever a dragon was moving, more often than not managing to catch the dragon in an explosion; the other a perfectly aimed, highly efficient volley that never missed one of the black-and-rainbow monsters.

Faster, Kakashi thought. They were getting wise to it. Several of them were making towards them—he threw two _kunai, _one pierced the assaulting dragon in the eye and blew its upper half apart, the other ricocheted off its forehead and exploded as it passed its wings, making it crumple and fall. But others were coming, there were so many, and he didn't have that many _kunai_ left!

Should've guessed he wasn't meant to be a thrower, Kakashi thought. Undrig had barely hit any, and had already stopped throwing.

He couldn't see where Undrig was, or even above the rocks he hid within. He checked his stock. Ten left. There were far more dragons than that. Probably twenty left, at most. He cursed.

They swooped low, and he ducked within the crevasse, making himself as small as possible, wrapping up the partially used shinobi scroll from which he had taken his _kunai_ and hugging it to his chest. He crawled as deep as he could go, glancing up only as a dark shape moved over the crevasse, blocking the light.

A wide, multi-colored eye stared down at him, blinking furiously. No shred of intelligence gleamed within. A monster to the very core.

It shifted its head, opening its mouth. He fired a _kunai_ up, striking it in the back of the throat. It jerked back, gurgling, and then exploded.

The explosion tore apart the crevasse, and Kakashi was immediately up and out. He stood on a jutting of ruined rock perpendicular to the mountainside, and looked up. Then he began to move, realizing what a moron he was.

Fire, ice and green, bubbling acid assailed him from above. The remaining dragons were snarling and bellowing and two hadn't even bothered with their breath, moving straight for him. He whipped around and destroyed them with two more _kunai_. Only seven left.

He couldn't see where Undrig was. A group of dragons had landed on the jutting rock, where they were snapping and breathing their deadly breaths at something within. Kakashi's eye grew wide.

He threw three of his remaining _kunai_ at the group of dragons. Each hit their mark, did their job, and the two remaining dragons scattered into the sky. Kakashi avoided a stream of flames and dove into the darkness of another crevasse, taking note of a small boulder to the left of it.

Shit, shit, shit! He thought. Get going now!

The dragon swarm reformed again. They moved as one down, swooping like a monstrous bird of prey, their mouths open, tongues flailing, eyes wide and ferocious, heat and frost and crackling energy mixing in the air ready to discharge as one and annihilate the little morsel before them, this tiny beast their master had commanded them to destroy.

Like hounds they were, loyal to the end.

Or perhaps more like lambs.

"'ERE I COME, LADS!"

Undrig exploded from the rocks, high above the approaching swarm. He had been climbing as fast as he could without being noticed, hoping his clone wouldn't fuck anything up and Kakashi wouldn't get killed while he was setting up the perfect end to the perfect trap.

Undrig made a few seals in mid-air, and then stretched out his hands wide, as he fell in a dive.

'_Holy Arts: Final Judgment'_

His hands began to glow, and then he reached back and tugged forth his hammer, gripping it with both hands for only a second before swinging it back and hurtling it at the swarm of dragons. They did not hear it, did not register it, did not break apart in time, too intent on Kakashi, crouched in that hole from which he would not escape—

They released their breaths as one, just as Undrig's attack struck. The hammer fell into the middle of their formation, glowing bright yellow, warmth and light welling up like the sun rising over the horizon, and then exploding in a flash. Light erupted outwards, engulfing the dragons in a blaze of holy fire and light that sent them in every direction, careening in smoking heaps into the side of the mountain or tumbling down and away forever.

The volley of their multi-colored breaths struck their target perfectly. The crevasse was demolished in a haze of smoke and fire and sound, surely killing anything within. A gigantic portion of the mountain then fell away in a crumbling crash, dropping out of sight towards the black ground below.

Undrig landed roughly, curled into a ball, on an intact outcropping just large enough for himself and another. It shook, but held, and he crawled to his feet, staring at the wreckage without any hint of emotion.

"Pretty good, I'd say."

The dwarf paladin growled. "Knew ye weren' gone."

Kakashi was perched right next to him, unharmed and looking a little chipper.

"Regretful?"

"Nah. 'Cept for the hammer. I liked that one. One o' me finest works, I'd say."

"A weapon is a weapon," said Kakashi.

"Aye, suppose so."

"Aye."

"Don' do tha'."

Kakashi grinned a little. "Sorry." He turned his head up. "We'd better get back."

"Yer in no condition."

"They'll need our help."

"You're about to fall o'er as it is."

Kakashi shook his head, and tried to stand. He did it slowly, as if balanced on a precarious ledge and about to fall. When he was up, he looked at Undrig, and sighed.

"You're right."

"Best if we stay 'ere—"

"**YES, IT IS, DWARFLING."**

It appeared without any sound at all. There was a gust of wind from behind, blowing Undrig nearer to the mountainside and nearly knocking Kakashi over. An immense black shape hovered before them in mid-air, its mouth wide in a reptilian grin and its eyes glowing steadily orange.

"**THE CHROMES ARE WEAK, IT SEEMS. MY MASTER IS NOT AS GREAT AN ARTIST AS HE LIKES TO THINK, A PALE IMITATION OF THE TRUE ONES, AS I SUSPECTED. BUT LOOK, I SPY A HUMAN AND A DWARFLING TO PLAY WITH, THEIR DESTROYERS. PERHAPS A LITTLE ENTERTAINMENT WILL DO ME GOOD. I HAVE BEEN SO BORED LATELY!"**

"Like's to talk, doesn't he?" Kakashi muttered.

"Talks like a bitch, 'e does." Undrig groused.

"Aye."

The black drake reared back, opening its mouth. "**BITCH? YOU DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD IF YOU SPEAK IT TO ME, LITTLE ONE! COME NOW, LET'S SEE IF THIS NEW BREED OF HUMAN CAN DO ME—"**

The mountainside exploded, ending the drake's practiced speech and engulfing him in a stream of white-hot fire that leapt out from the newly-created cavern. The dragon bellowed, tried to fly up, to beat it off, but it held fast and dragged the beast down as it began to take shape; the flames were suddenly not flames at all, but scarlet scales and ivory-and-black claws and horns and white teeth, biting into flesh and tearing and ripping like scissors through canvas paper.

The red dragon said no words, no dying speech, as it dragged the roaring drake downwards, clinging fast to its wings. The drake could not break free, his guile no match for the physical power of the mighty red, even when only half the red was there.

Kakashi stared down, both of his eyes wide, as he witnessed the end of the tortured Red and the arrogant Black. Half of the red dragon's body was gone; a bloody, fiery mess that streamed and broke off in little, liquid sparks as they fell.

Soon, the both of them were lost, nothing but a small prick of light that eventually was snuffed as it struck the ground, so far below.

"Looks like," Kakashi said, when all they could hear was the roaring wind as it cooled the sizzling rock behind them. "We discovered something else today."

Undrig said nothing.

"That my _Mangekyou Sharingan_ does, in fact, go somewhere, and you can, in fact, come back from wherever that is." He shrugged, and then slumped back against the rock. "Partially, at least."

Undrig said nothing again.

* * *

Nefarian swept his eyes across the platform. He did not need them, however, to know that it was empty of its occupants. Through the black smoke from his fire blown by the raging winds across the entire battleground he could see no moving forms with their desperate faces and squeaking, annoying cries of rage, pain and despair. They had all gone, and to where, he had no idea.

The flames before him died at his will. There was nothing beneath them, not a scrap of evidence of the human he had sought to destroy. A trick, then. Perhaps he should just destroy what lay beneath them, this rotten earth. No, he would not resort to that. He was no longer a creature of the earth, like his ancestors. They were not the Earth Dragons, but the Black Dragons. He hated the earth, and would let it crumble only when the heavens no longer obeyed him, which would never happen.

They were mystifying creatures, these humans. Unnatural creatures, not like anything else in the world, proud beyond measure even though they were disgustingly weak and ignorant of everything except themselves. They might have been tenacious and persistent where not even the barriers of worlds could stop their survival and spread—that was how they had become to known to him, after all—but they often went against better judgment and their desire to survive in hopes of gaining some small revenge for just a single one of their number lost, when there were countless more. They bred too quickly—to the point where they had become the dominant race in both worlds—and threw their lives away in spades, did not cherish what meager existence they had. They did not respect the natural order of things, did not obey their betters in anything they did. Why were humans like this? They could reason, yet they never exercised that right.

Why did humans exist, what was their purpose, other than to be a virus to his kind?

The dragon rippled with growing fury. He did not understand these creatures, these little things that fought and fought and fought without measure or reason. They had no pain to drive them, no voices whispering in their ears whenever there was silence, nothing to drive them towards destruction. Why did they do this?

He growled. Pain surged up and down within him. Maybe it was because of him. Maybe he was the reason these humans fought so hard against reason. They were imitating him, and his kind, those who could do naught but fight because that was what they had been directed to do since they had been born. Live for pain and fight to ease it, destroy and kill to rid yourself of it if even for a single second.

Broiling wrath grew hotter within him. How dare they? When pain was not their life, how dare they make it so? They did not realize it, did they? They could not feel that pain, they lived without it, they did not deserve to, they were weak, spineless, they deserved to be doused in pain until it consumed their entire souls, everything should be pain for them, everything! He would make it so, he would make every bit of their disgusting existences pain to show them that they were fools.

He would not stop until he had delivered that to them. Until his hell was theirs.

His words lightly sliced the air, lighting it aflame as delicately as a brush fire begins.

"_**Show Yourselves, Friends, Fiends And Playmates. I Grow Bored Of This, And I Know You Do As Well. Patience Was Never One Of Your Race's Strong Points."**_

Nothing happened. Not a soul stirred, not an unnatural sound made.

Anger and agony rose up in Nefarian like tornadoes dancing aside one another. He let rip a baleful, incoherent cry; roaring in his most primordial tongue for them to get the fuck out there and DIE!

And this time, they responded.

The attack hit him head-on, but was hardly worth the effort to shake it off. The blonde human female was before him, her hands held out and her face twisted in effort as he attempted to thrust the full weight of her mind upon him.

But it was just a diversion. He knew that. They were not stupid.

Nor was he.

He ignored it, and turned. A second human was there, the fat one. His face was red with rage and with a cry he held out an arm, which began to hum and vibrate. It did not grow, as before, to inappropriate proportions, but instead began to glow. The arm blurred, and the glow brightened and expanded, but Nefarian was already moving and made no effort to observe the rest.

"_**Disgusting Human, Your Strength Cannot Match Mine. Let Your Arm Drop, And DIE!"**_

The boy let his arm drop, and he stepped back as Nefarian's tail whipped back in preparation to slice the human in half, and his face—

Was smirking.

The attack hit him from below. Naruto did not know how much of his _chakra_ he poured into the attack, but it was enough to tear the dragon off his feet with a fiery flash and throw him roaring onto his back.

'_Katon: Kaenhira'_

Both of Naruto's fists exploded in flaming gouts as they struck the seared, torn flesh and cracked, brittle scales of Nefarian's underside. Naruto ducked back into the great pool of black that he had hidden within—Nefarian's own shadow—and then rose up again as the dragon fell onto his back, blood and shattered scales flying all around him. He made a few more quick seals.

'_Raiton: Raikou Hadou no jutsu'_

Electricity exploded from Naruto's palms in a widening blanket of crackling white light, arcing across Nefarian's scales like miniature shooting stars, burrowing far beneath that into the innards that swam in his boiling black blood. Every muscle contracted so violently that the dragon seized up, paralyzed mid-roar. For that brief moment, not a single inch of the dragon moved, allowing Chouji exactly the time he needed to finish his attack.

'_Bubun Chodan Hensei'_

Light hovered around Chouji's right arm, extending in a delicate sheath around it in the exact replica of a butterfly's wing. From far from being the papery thin membrane, it hummed with invisible power, buffeting a gust of wind as Chouji threw himself forwards, driving the wing and his fist down atop Nefarian's body.

The platform shook in an explosive crash, rivulets of cracked stone springing to every inch of it. The hole in the center grew wider as stone burst and crumbled away into endless air, taking a stunned Nefarian with them. The impact of Chouji's attack had drive all sense from the dragon, and had shattered nearly all of the remaining surface scales on Nefarian's stomach, revealing crude, black, smoking skin beneath.

The dragon fell out of sight, carried by the falling earth.

Chouji stepped back, just daring to feel triumph. He grinned.

Before he was thrown into the air, and swatted across the platform, smashing into one of the fallen pillars in the throne enclave. He lay stunned by agony, his body trembling and his chest heaving as he fought for air to return to his fiery lungs.

Both Ino and Naruto retreated. The air shimmered, and Nefarian emerged from nothing, his wings spread.

"_**To Deceive Is As Easy As You Make It."**_ The dragon heaved a stream of fire towards Naruto and Ino, who split up in two quick leaps.

"_**This Ends. This Earth I Hate Will Not Abide You Any Longer. You Shall Fall!"**_

Nefarian raised his claw.

Naruto grinned. He brought his hands together in a quick seal.

'_Kageariki: Kai'_

Nefarian's claw froze.

The dragon looked down, eyes wide.

"_**What?"**_

It was explained not a moment later. For the second time, Nefarian was launched skywards, with as much force as if he had taken flight. Sakura's battle cry could just be heard over Nefarian's pain-fuelled bellow. She stood, wading to her waist in the liquid shadow of Naruto's _jutsu_ with her arm stretched upwards and her fist closed. Her arm shook with effort and her eyes were shut and her teeth gnashed together as she recovered from the hideous strain of delivering a punch strong enough to lift a dragon thirty feet into the air. Shikamaru was at the other end of the rapidly shrinking _jutsu_, his trench knife planted in the ground where the shadow of Nefarian's claw had been.

Pain ripped across Nefarian's torso as if a blade had sliced it in two. Blood exploded from the wound in his chest exiting through a hole torn where the girl had punched. He writhed as he fell, but even before he reached the ground the attack continued.

Tenten's roar was similar to Sakura's. She produced the largest of her blades—a six-bladed throwing star twice the size of her torso—and hurtled it at the dragon's left wing, which was clenched tightly to its side. It struck the scales and ricocheted, but then the six explosive notes marking each of its blades exploded and tore the wing membranes apart and sent the dragon spinning.

'_Kage Bunshin no jutsu'_

Naruto's clones leapt into the air, covering Nefarian's torso like burrs on a dog's fur. Nefarian crashed into the ground, roaring madly, as Naruto made a seal.

'_Katon: Kaen Bunshin no jutsu'_

The remaining clones glowed white-hot, and then exploded, engulfing the dragon in flames.

Nefarian was up then, roaring in fury.

"_**FLAMES, DIE!"**_

The flames went out like candles.

Nefarian's right wing remained intact, his left shredded and discharging hissing black blood.

The dragon roared. "_**Healers Come To Me. My Pain Is Your Pain, So Rid It For Us, Clear That Which You Can Away, Or Just Die."**_

Ino and Sakura crumpled, and both began to scream.

"INO!" Shikamaru bellowed, making for the girl.

"SAKURA-CHAN!" Naruto roared. It took a movement of the wind to bring him to her side, gripping her tightly by the shoulders as she convulsed in agony.

"What is it?" he cried. "What's wrong?"

She could only scream, clinging to him to hard he thought she might break his spine. He held her tightly, desperate to stop what she was feeling, but unable to.

"_**Do You See?" **_ Nefarian snarled. "_**Words Cannot Convey My Pain**_, _**Only Experience. All Of You Should Experience It. Humans, All Feel My Pain!"**_

Naruto whipped around, his eyes fierce and wide.

"Screw you, bastard!"

He made swarm of clones, which flew at Nefarian with the fury of an attacking army. The dragon roared, and Ragnaros' flames roared into being around him.

That's when Neji struck.

From the shadows of the cave that had led from the mountain onto the plateau Neji emerged. He made a quick seal, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

One of Naruto's clones appeared in his place.

Neji, now before the rearing dragon, slammed just a single palm into Nefarian's exposed chest, directed at an upwards angle. The blow made the dragon's throat seize up, the flames choking him from within. He could not speak, or even roar. His own flames seared his throat and drove him back, stumbling, choking, trembling; and finally he stopped, sinking to his knees and then to his side, where he lay unmoving, and unspeaking.

"Don't," Naruto growled, "you fucking get up again."

Both Ino and Sakura stopped writhing, and fell still. Naruto returned immediately to his pink-haired teammate's side.

"Oi! Sakura-chan, are you—"

"Fine…" she mumbled, and began to gasp. Naruto felt his entire being relax.

"You sure?"

She peaked up at him with one eye, her lips slightly parted, her chest heaving with effort. "Not really."

"Can I do—"

"Not now."

He nodded, just staring at her. She stared back for a while, and then closed her eyes, seeming more relaxed than before.

Naruto turned, his heartbeat beginning to even out as relief began to mix with the rush of victory that was threatening to rear itself. But none of the others had moved from their positions. All of their eyes were on Nefarian. The dragon still did not move.

"Neji?" Shikamaru muttered.

Neji shook his head. "All dark."

"That's good, right?"

"He was that beforehand."

"So what happens now?" Tenten gasped.

"How's Chouji?" Shikamaru asked Neji. The other boy cocked his head to the side.

"Unconscious, but alive. He's behind us, near the throne-room."

Shikamaru turned and ran back towards the throne enclave, where he could just make out Chouji's prone, still body amidst the stone. Neji's words were confirmed when he checked the young man's pulse, which was faint but definite, and probably only faint because Shikamaru had to press quite firmly to feel it beneath Chouji's "extra layers". He relaxed, and then turned towards the others.

His eyes went wide, as theirs had.

Nefarian was up. The terribly black dragon had dragged himself to his feet and was now standing, full and tall, his hellishly molten eyes snapping from each human to the next. He uttered an unearthly growl that sent fresh chills down Shikamaru's spine.

"_**Humans…Disgusting…I Will…Kill…Kill…ALL!"**_

The dragon took a step forwards, and then exploded.

Fire streamed from every orifice on Nefarian's body; white, bright and old, it burst like geysers from Nefarian's mouth and between his scales and gushed like a flood from the wound on his stomach, coiling up around his body and devouring the hardened black scales in jaws of white. Nefarian thrashed, and the walls of the mountain cracked and the floor began to loosen, as if becoming sand beneath them, with each of the dragon's steps.

He began to cough, and then spat out a word:

"_**Ragnaros!"**_

Something huge fell from the dragon's mouth, not a bit of flame or molten rock or even a piece of the dragon; a solid, circular object half the size of Nefarian's head. It was lit with the bright flames so that other than it's shape, nothing could be seen of it.

"_**Ragnarosssss, Disssgustting Fool…" **_Nefarian snarled.

The fire around the object changed, forming a face for a brief moment, a grinning, crowned skull, and then returned to shapeless flame.

Nefarian raised a claw and slammed it atop the object, which burst in a cloud of rock and smoke. A few of the pieces fell at Naruto's feet.

The flames fell, dying as quickly as if touched by heavy rainfall. Nefarian stopped writhing, stopped moving, but continued to roar, turning his body towards the shinobi, directing every bit of his intention to kill on them. He spoke, his words hissing as they fell off his burnt tongue and drifted like ashes through the air.

"_**SSSStupid…Wretchedsssss…HUmanssssss!"**_

Black flames began to pour from Nefarian's body. They seemed to devour his body but he did not shrink from them, seemed to stand taller against them. He spread his wings as the flames touched them, covered them like a second skin.

The shinobi did not move, did not make a sound. They just stared at him, at his majesty, in awe and fear like they should.

No, that was not quite right.

He saw nothing in their eyes. Their faces were soot-covered and sweaty, some burnt and bloody and others barely holding themselves up, barely able to move their weak little limbs, but none of them were fearful, none of them awed. Their eyes were nothing, deep and bottomless, like the earth.

He saw no pain in them.

The black flames roared higher. They deserved it, they deserved pain, and those eyes should be filled, not empty, not dark.

A whistling like the wind mixed with the crackling of the black flames, but Nefarian did not notice. His mind became blank, pain and anger reaching a point where reason had fled screaming from him, and instinct had taken reign. Nefarian howled like a wild animal.

The whistling grew louder. Finally, Nefarian's ears attended to it, and he turned.

The blonde human, slayer of his sister, stood there with one of his clones. He clutched something odd in his hand, a blue glowing sphere that seemed to distort the air around it as if hot, but there was no heat, just that infernal whistling sound, like the wind only louder, more unnatural. The clone was doing something to it, molding it, shaping it, compacting it. It seemed to draw the air within it, and each time it moved the air moved with it.

Nefarian stretched his mouth wide, and the black flames balled within it. Naruto stretched his arm back, dismissing his clone, and charged forwards. Nefarian released the blast of flames, twice the size of his head.

Naruto used _Kazaashi_.

He slammed the _Rasengan_, infused with as much wind-elemental _chakra_ as he could muster in the short time he had been allowed to form it, even as it cut into his hand and arm and caused excruciating pain, into Nefarian's side.

'_Fuuton: Rasengan Uzumaki'_

The whistle turned into a howl, which became a chorus as the _Rasengan_ exploded in a shock of white light that enveloped half of Nefarian's body and the ground beneath him was turned to powder. Nefarian's huge form was carried away by the cutting winds, over the edge of the platform and into the endless drop beneath.

"We're not just humans," Naruto said, in a gasp.

Nefarian made no sound, screamed no words of hate or anger, or if he did, nobody could hear it over the choir of Naruto's singing _Rasengan_. His body spun in mid-air, unmoving and dead.

His last thoughts, and Naruto's final words, pursued him as he fell.

"We're fucking shinobi."

Where Is It…? He wondered.

He could see it nowhere around him. No heaven of high above. Just earth, just dark, unforgiving earth; earth that he had been born from, rotten dust that he had rebelled against, dirty, violent, cold earth. Earth that he had despised enough to flee but loved enough to destroy any who attempted to call it his own, earth so far away from heaven, earth so…

So very close.

Maybe The pain…he thought, as the darkness of the former Molten Core rose up around him.

maybe the pain will stop?

With his last thoughts of weakness, Nefarian vanished into earthen darkness.

And the heavens fell silent.

* * *

WHEEEE!! That was great! I loved writing that chapter!

Nefarian was one of my favorite WoW characters, and I hope I did him justice (with a little artistic flair, of course) as I really wanted his death to be awesome and even slightly humiliating (he was a pompous ass-hole, let's be fair) and his battle to have long-standing consequences…everyone's going to change quite a bit from this experience, I'd wager. Read on to see how!

Yes, the end of Magni's Pride. What's Naruto going to do now? Don't worry about his jacket—it'll be back, I promise.

And yes, a long-promised break for our heroes, as we turn to look at some other parts of the world. What's been going on with Thrall? Sasuke? Maybe even Akatsuki? What about Sai and Yamato?

All this revealed in the next…no…I won't shame myself…

See you next week, hopefully.

General Grievous

_**Scroll of Seals:**_

_**Raiton: Raikou Hadou no jutsu (Lightning Release: Lightning Wave Technique)**_

_**Kageariki: Kai (Shadow Walk: Release): **_Opens a stored shadow portal from the technique _Kageariki_, taught by Vol'jin to Naruto.

_**Fuuton: Rasengan Uzumaki (Wind Release: Spiraling Sphere Vortex): **_Hovers somewhere after the Rasenshuriken, but not by much. The technique is viciously powerful but does extreme damage (even more than Naruto's _Rasenshuriken) _and is far from complete, but shows the possibility of becoming one of the most powerful techniques in existence. It is slowly gaining versatility, with each step Naruto makes in its completion.

_**Bubun Chodan Hensei (Partial Butterfly Metamorphosis):**_Same idea as the full technique, only it only requires a single limb and has none of the drastic effects that the Akamichi pills grant it, other than a severe depletion of stored food energy reserves. Yet it still requires immense amounts of highly focused _chakra_ and takes time to prepare, but is devastating once it connects. Few could survive a strike from this.

_**Bingo Book:**_

_**Nefarian (Dragonkin)(Boss): **_Self-proclaimed Lord of the Black Dragonflight after his father, Nefarian is cunning, ruthless and extremely powerful. Blessed not only with his black dragon abilities of fiery breath and durable scales, he possesses a strange ability to produce _jutsu_ with just words. Each one of his words has some effect in reality, the most potent of them weakening his opponents or destroying them utterly. He can reproduce the effect of any _jutsu _with only words, and can throw off other _jutsu_ by changing their effects. He is ruthless, cunning, and like all black dragons, driven insane by the mysterious anger that inhabits their blood, right back to the beginning, with his father, Deathwing.

_**Ragnaros (Elemental)(Boss): **_Dead, but his power is imprisoned within Nefarian's body, and apparently he still has some consciousness within. Perhaps the world has not seen the last of the dreaded immortal Firelord, but who knows?


	33. Things Of Late

_Disclaimer: I don't owne ye olde Narutoe ore ye olde Worlde of Warcrafte. That said, I also don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend Of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

"Matthias went to retrieve them yesterday, did he?" Benedictus said, clearing his nasal passages with a loud sniff and an inappropriate smacking of his lips.

Kira didn't answer. She was stared out the window at the overcast sky, her eyes heavy-lidded and her brow knitted as tightly as a well-made sweater.

"You're not happy."

Kira looked at him. Again, she didn't answer. The old man rolled his eyes and pushed his glasses up farther along the bridge of his nose, before turning back to the sheets of paper that littered his bed. His mouth was pressed into a thin line.

"My word, I would've thought you had long since grown out of tantrums. Then again, you are a teenager, and I suppose there is little difference between those and four year olds." He picked up one of the papers. "I suppose this answers my question. '_Returned to Kargath, everyone's alive, will return as soon as possible.' _Well that's good news, isn't it? I was expecting at least one of them to die, but then again, it doesn't say much else about injuries, so perhaps at least one or two of them have life-crippling wounds that—"

"Stop it, master!" Kira finally said, turning to show him the full force of her glare, mingled with shame, anger and despair.

"Perhaps you should first," Benedictus said. "You're a queen, not a child."

"But you didn't have to—"

"You're angry with them, and horrified that they went and did something so dangerous? You were thinking, if one of them dies, it will be my fault? I thought you had at least some sense, child. This has nothing to do with you, nothing at all. You should feel no anger, no despair, no shame over it. They did what they wanted to do and I'm sure that they will be punished for it in a number of ways, most clearly that I'm sure the first thing that you will do when that boy gets back is slap him or cry into his shoulder, both of which will have the exact same effect and show him that you are both angry and hurt that he did not tell you that they were going to do this and that if he had died you would have been crushed beyond measure." Benedictus took a fluid-filled breath, frowned, and spat something into the bin by his bed. "I'm going to need a new bin soon. I've sufficiently coated the bottom of this one with excess fluid from my damaged, aging lungs. Call the nurse, will you?"

Kira didn't move, and just stared at him. Her eyes were downcast.

"But—"

"What are you contesting now? Getting the nurse or my previous statement?"

She glared at him. "What do you think?"

"At this moment, either one seems plausible."

"The previous statement."

He sighed. "As much as you want to be a part of it, this is truly not your concern. It is a shinobi affair. I'm sufficiently shocked that they would do something as unprofessional as this, but then again, what else can you expect from the boy?"

Kira didn't answer.

"Exactly. Furthermore, they're alive. You have nothing to worry about any longer, and he will return here and continue to help you. Also, they succeeded in their mission and the dwarves have their leader back, and while I don't expect sweeping reforms in the next few weeks, I guarantee you that the boy will be a decent ruler in the future. That was my impression, at least." He yawned, settling back against his pillows.

"And again, they have rid us of not one, but two different individual threats to our society. The Black Flight no longer has power in this part of the world, and the Dark Iron Dwarves have been freed of their tyranny from the Firelord Ragnaros, who, as I understand it, no longer exists as an entity. It was better that he was finished before he gained sufficient enough power to attack beyond his borders. It is a fitting end to such a powerful being as well, don't you think? Lost before he could do a thing. The irony would be perfect in a story, I think. I might write it if I get the chance."

Silence slid into the room and lingered for a few minutes. Kira returned to staring at the window.

"More pressingly," said Benedictus, "I would start communication with Vol'jin again."

She looked at him. "Why?"

"Why indeed? Think about it. I also want to know what is happening with Thrall. Has Tyrande returned to Teldrassil?"

Kira nodded.

"Then have her send someone to seek Thrall out, or at least someone who knows him. We need to know what is going on in that part of the world, and very soon. Something is very wrong there, and I want to know what."

"If nothing," he said. "It will prove a pleasant enough distraction until the boy returns. Act your age, girl, and figure out what's wrong with our alliance."

"I know, master," she said, quietly. "I already have."

"And what is it?"

"A lot."

"Good. Now where's that nurse?"

* * *

The ground made sucking sounds whenever Sai's feet pressed into it, despite how lightly he stepped. It had been raining so much in the past week that no matter where he went or stood he was wet, and no matter what time of the day it was, he remained it. The rain was black and angry, falling constantly and when it didn't the black and green-tinged clouds kept the moisture hovering about them in humid haze that made Sai's skin clammy and hot and his wet clothes feel sticky against his skin. It was probably the only weather in which it seemed physically impossible to smile and yet Sai still did it, though it wavered at times, especially at nights when Yamato wasn't watching him and was trying to get as much sleep as he could.

They were on their way to conduct their daily investigation of the keep looming above them. It was called Durnholde Keep, and their observations said to them that whatever purpose it had once held, it was certainly not what it was being used for now.

They had made camp higher up the mountain, shrouded in trees and without fire, so that they were not detected. Most of the time Yamato kept an eye on the keep with his _Moku Bunshin_, but in order to get the information it gathered they had to travel to meet it; because it was stationed on solid rock, it could not transmit the information constantly through its roots as it normally would have. But it gave them a chance to view what was happening with their own eyes.

And things were happening all the time.

The men who inhabited the keep dressed all in black and kept their faces completely hidden at all times. They moved with rigid discipline and did nothing wasteful. They did not carouse or drink or show any visible signs of emotion, and even though Yamato prided himself on having keen eyes, he could never distinguish one man from another. During the day they were seen little, and during the evening and into the night they would gather in the large ditch that scarred the keep's courtyard, where several groups of log houses had been built, and bring crates, bags, chests and bottles, all of which were filled with riches, and then they would count everything they had.

It did not take long, despite how much they had to count. They went through it daily and did it no less rigorously or accurately than the previous day. They broke everything into several groups and then counted everything in that group, before adding it all together. They would repeat this, twice—sometimes thrice— just to make sure everything was accounted for. Then they would put it away and extinguish the lights and all would be silent until morning, where they would leave the cabins and the keep and vanish in the early morning light.

Every day their stash would grow, however. They brought back more crates, more bags, more chests every day to add to the pile. Sometimes after counting a few of them would quickly leave, and later that night return with a bag or two more of gold and silver. Then they would count again, no matter how late it was.

"They have to meet a quota," Yamato had said earlier in the week after observing one of these sessions.

"Yes," said Sai. "But for whom?"

"The man they work for. Perhaps Akatsuki."

"But why so much money?"

"Funding."

"For what?"

Yamato hadn't answered.

Nothing had changed in that week, even since they had received one of Kakashi's dogs, citing the attack on Southshore. Yamato had sent a _Moku Bunshin _to investigate, and had left it there to help when he had received ample information on the situation. Hopefully Stormwind would send more help; it was getting worse, with new attacks apparently every day.

Sai had suggested they return. Yamato had refused.

"This is more important."

"Than these people's lives?" Sai wondered, with a smile.

Yamato hadn't answered.

Now, the day's observations were already underway. Yamato would be off to rejoin his clone, and Sai would keep watch on the western half of the keep. Sai wondered if today would be different, if they would discover something different, or if it would be the same counting ritual as before. Yamato had a feeling that it would differ, but Sai didn't know what that meant.

"Do you have precognition? Or is it an emotion, like camaraderie?"

"It's neither," said Yamato, before they parted. "It's just a feeling. In your gut."

"Gut?" said Sai. "What do you mean? Is it a stomach infection?"

"No." Yamato sighed. "I can't explain it. You'll probably figure it out eventually, or you may not. Either way, it doesn't really matter. It's sort of a cold feeling, in your stomach. As if it's submerged in ice. That's all I can really tell you about it." He raised an eyebrow, then. "You really have changed, haven't you?"

Sai smiled. "I hope I have."

Yamato grunted. "Get to work."

Sai nodded, and they parted. Sai made his way along the walls, swiftly and as silently as possible. His body was light with _chakra_ and he tried to stay atop the soft earth and stop it from making the annoying sounds. He curled around the corner, went a little ways down and then scaled the wall in the safest place he knew for that time of day. The guards did not patrol much towards the evening, and they would be at the other end of the castle right now.

The breeze was stronger atop the walls, and it began to rain as he moved along the ruined stonework towards the center, where he could view the central ditch from a good position. He lifted something from his pouch, a small rectangular pad of paper only the size of his palm, and crouching so that his back shielded it from the rain, he inscribed a quick drawing on it with one of his smallest brushes. A crude drawing which he frowned at for a good while before putting his materials away and placing the paper on the wet stone. The water soaked into the paper until it was transparent, and the ink began to run. Sai placed a hand on it and with his other made a seal.

'_Ninpo: Minor Tattooing'_

The ink did not spring from the wet page as normal—instead, the figure it formed—a small fox—skittered across the stone completely two-dimensional, and vanished over the ledge. A thin trail of ink was left behind it, and in his ear, Sai could hear it moving across the wet stone down the wall, and then across the cracked cobbles and down the wooden walls of the ditch, and then along wet mud until he could hear voices. He smiled when he came close enough to hear the speech of the men inside one of the cabins. He sighed; once again, there was nothing of interest. Places they had looted, places that had yet to be looted, what they must do for the coming counting session, how to make quota. They mentioned nothing else, nothing of who had set the quota, nothing of what it was to be used for.

Hours passed. The rain stopped once, and then continued. Sai moved his ink-creature a few times so that he could hear better, and kept watch with a pair of binoculars.

When dusk arrived, the rain tapered off again, and the houses went silent except for the clunking of boots on wood. Sai watched the ditch closely now, noticing the absence of another sound—they were not moving the chests and bags of gold, which made so much noise that often Sai had to move his creature far away from the house to avoid being deafened by it.

He watched keenly. His ink-creature moved with them into the center of the ditch. They were completely silent.

Through his binoculars, he could see something happening. Movement near the keep's gate, two men parting.

Then, a new man entered the keep, one that Sai had never seen before.

Ah, he thought. Yamato-san was right then! What a useful feeling that must be.

The man was gigantic, at least seven feet tall, and dressed in a mask that covered his head and most of his face. His eyes were visible, but not from so far away, and his skin was darker than the rest. He wore a cloak, matted by the rain, with crimson clouds embroidered along the bottom.

He made his way swiftly across the bridge over the ditch, which separated the western and eastern portions of the ditch as well as the ruined central keep from the rest of the walls. He went down a few steps to where the men of the Syndicate had gathered, just before the bridge. They were all on the west side, nearest Sai, which was good, because that meant he could see the best.

The man did not break stride until he was dead in the center of all of the men. They stood rigid, just watching him. The man was silent for a long time, which was good, because it allowed Sai's creature to get in close so that he didn't miss a word.

Finally, the giant spoke. His voice was bottomless.

"The fucking fun has fallen, the final fury has been finished. With what weather does which witch work?"

Confused, Sai shook his head and drew out the paper pad again. He wrote down the phrase, even as it was answered by one of the men. He did not even break from the line, so Sai could not tell who said it.

"Thick thralls have the thoughts think and the things thought. Possibly people have permissed portions of pork to pipers who pick passed pickings for a price of possibly point two. Rats ring rowdily on the rocks."

The giant nodded. "Brats bring bottles of becoming to barmy the bitch's birth. Lie little lark, make my morning mat."

Sai frowned. It was a code, but Sai was decent at those, yet this one had none of the characteristics of a real code. Aside from the alliteration, there were no similarities in any of the words they spoke, though verbal codes were the most difficult to crack, since their meanings could lie even within the sounds they were delivered with.

The conversation continued.

"Just joking joker, jingling jacks jibe the jackass to join the joiner."

The Akatsuki member scoffed. "Hear, humans, hurting hearts heat hinges to higher heights."

"Things thank the thoughts."

The giant jerked his head. The crowd dispersed, and the man himself went into one of the cabins, followed by a single man, while the rest went to the other cabins and began their nightly duties. Sai's creature followed the man into the cabin. He could not see anything, but he could hear the man's light steps, amazing for someone so huge.

There were no words, neither man spoke. Then, a step, and a sound like branches whipping in the wind. Then a terrible ripping, wrenching, gushing sound, flesh pulled apart, blood and vomit welling up in a throat, gurgles and choking sounds, bones cracking and then a body falling, and then silence, save for the drip, drip, drip of blood and the final choking gasps of a dead man. The whipping sound returned, and then more footsteps.

The giant Akatsuki emerged from the house. Sai did not need the binoculars to see that he was covered in blood. Most of his black cloak was now wet with dark red stains. The rain began to wash it off, as the giant moved away from the house towards the center of the ditch again.

He did not move from there for a long time.

Meanwhile, the others had not emerged from their cabins. Sai checked in on them with his creature, finding that they were still in total silence save for the clinking of coins and precious metals. So he kept close to the silent Akatsuki member, who just stared at nothing. Sai did not want to get too close, in case he sensed something of the _chakra_. It was so minor he shouldn't have been able to, but this man was obviously very cautious, if he spoke in code even among in his own subordinates.

The entrance to the keep moved again. The two guards moved forward to meet whoever was entering. Sai directed his binoculars there.

A group of men entered, dressed in purple robes and hoods, moving as one. They followed the same route the giant had into the ditch, never once falling out of line or stopping.

Sai adjusted his binoculars. He could see the men clearly, even in the rain. Their cloaks were very fine and looked expensive, trimmed with gold and blue, but he couldn't make out their faces. They bore no sign other than a blue and gold symbol etched on their right sleeves. Sai sketched it in a few strokes, and then returned his attention to the Akatsuki member.

The men in purple reached him.

"Six-two-four," one of the purple men said.

"Eight-eight-three," the giant said.

Sai wrote the numbers down.

"Seven-twenty-three," the giant said.

One of the purple men nodded. "Four-four-four."

The giant gestured to the cabins behind him and in front. "Fifty-four-eight."

Sai noticed that before the purple man spoke, his left hand moved back behind him. After he had spoken ("One-seven-two.") the hand returned to his side. He watched the giant answer. His hand went forwards, as if to brush something from his cloak. It returned after he had spoken.

"Ah," Sai said softly. "He is very clever."

Not verbal code then. Signing. Sai smiled, even as a strange feeling bubbled up somewhere between his gut and his chest. An uncomfortable feeling that made him restless. He recognized the symptoms, recalling them from a dictionary.

Annoyance.

The men had finished their conversation, and each one of the eight purple men spread out, moving swiftly to the individual cabins. The giant did not move immediately, but eventually followed one into the nearest cabin. Sai followed them inside. Once again, he could see nothing, but heard everything.

No more words were spoken. Just signing, Sai guessed. Maybe Yamato-san understood before I did, perhaps he recorded the conversations. He heard rustling within the cabin, and then a metallic whirring, and then—

A mass exhalation of air, like a summoning _jutsu_. Sai caught the tail end of a curl of smoke from the chimney of one of the cabins that he had not seen before. His eyes quickly went to each of the cabins, seeing similar signs in the distant windows. There was suddenly silence in the cabin, dead silence.

Sai stood up, and uncaring of the consequences, leapt down to the ground and then over the ledge onto the roof of the cabin. He slid off the roof, silently and no more conspicuous than a shadow at night, his eyes catching the inside as he passed the window.

Nothing.

They were gone.

--

"I understand what Master Kang meant when he spoke of that man." Yamato muttered.

"He treads very softly indeed, I hardly heard him walk," Sai said. They had returned to their camp, and were holding a brief debriefing session before they would return to Southshore, and hopefully Stormwind, with the news.

"He's very cautious," said Yamato. "Extraordinarily so. I don't think I've heard of someone using so much caution…"

"Perhaps he knew we where there?"

"He could have easily removed us, if he had. I don't think so." Yamato shook his head, frowning at the ground. He brushed a mosquito from near his ear. "Did you catch any of the signs?"

"Only a few. I missed the first conversation."

"Did you notice anything about the men in purple? Anything unusual?"

Sai nodded. "Yes, they were wearing purple, and it was a very vibrant purple that stood out and drew attention to themselves quite a bit. I do not think they were part of that man's group."

Yamato stared at him.

Sai smiled in return. "They were all quite dry, despite it having been raining for so long. Almost as if they had just come from someplace dry, or the rain simply didn't want to touch them. They also wore a symbol."

"What symbol?"

Sai fished out his sketchbook and held it out to the men, the desire page already up. Yamato took it, frowning at the image.

"It looks like a 'D'," he said.

"It does, does it not?" He shook his head, and continued to smile. "But it looks very much like something else I've seen before I met all of you."

Yamato stared at him. "Where did you see it?"

"Danzou-san had it. It was a small pendant, very small, that he kept around his neck. I do not know what it was for but I never asked him, because I knew he would never tell me. I do wish I had asked him, however, because it seems very strange that he would have something from another world, especially when this world was supposedly only just discovered by us." He tilted his head. "Do you believe me, Yamato-san?"

Yamato watched him for awhile.

"Yes. For once, I do."

* * *

Naxxramas.

She didn't even know what it meant. It was a horrible word, but it sent chills down the spines of everyone who heard tell of it. It was not hard to see why—it was so _cold_.

The darkened, dank halls that smelled of rot and dead things were filled with screams that day. Even though she knew the source of the screams, Karin felt chills with each one, and a growing feeling of despair within her chest. Her feelings like this never usually lasted long, because another part of her would well up and take control and that part of her didn't care about such feelings. But for some reason these screams always chilled her, always disturbed her, and always left her with a feeling of weakness and helplessness that she had always hated. It brought her too much back to a time when she had been nothing but helpless, and she wanted that part of her to stay dead and in the past, because she was no longer helpless.

At least she hoped.

"Tut, tut, tut," the thing before her said, shaking a thin, bone-white head smattered with a few strands of white-blonde hair like the head of a ruined broom. "This annoys me, quite a lot, you know? When one's creations fail so spectacularly it really irks me because it means more work and more hardship and how I hate that feeling…"

"What's wrong with him?" Karin choked out. "What's happening?"

A dead stare was leveled at her. The "man" before her had no eyes, just empty sockets framed with drapes of wrinkled skin that made them cunning slits. His face was more a skull than not, just white, dead skin stretched so tightly over bone that his lips were so drawn back that he appeared to be eternally grinning. His teeth were rotten and yellow and filed down into points, and the stench that was released with each breath would have slain a normal human should they lean close enough. The Plaguemaster of Naxxramas wore no more than a simple white robe, but it was obvious to everyone within the necropolis who he was and what he did, because no matter where he went, the feeling of impending death came with him.

The Plaguemaster licked his teeth with a rotten, black tongue. "That should be obvious, girl, I should think."

"In what way?"

"The symptoms of course, the symptoms you stupid girl. How I hate explaining such things to such newborns, it disgusts me but I'll do it because I know how annoying you creatures can get especially when you still have your autonomy. Yes, yes, alright." He licked his teeth again, and then tapped the brow of the boy who lay on the table before them. Stripped naked, Uchiha Sasuke lay writhing in physical pain as great as the emotional scar that had plagued him since his brother had ruined his life.

"This boy is rejecting my master's plague, girl," he tapped the boy a bit harder on the forehead, the skin bunching up even further around his sockets so that he appeared to glare. "Impossible, I thought, but no, not impossible, quite possible! He is rejecting it, rejecting such a perfect creation, how is this possible you ask? Well, it is annoying to explain, but I shall do it."

"What does that mean, he's rejecting it? How can you reject death?" Karin asked, slowly.

"How indeed!" the Plaguemaster laughed. "How indeed. That is the question, isn't it? Death is impossible to cure, true death at least, and though this isn't true death it is the closest thing to it, right? How does one regenerate dead cells, well, one doesn't, because it is impossible unless you have a considerable healing factor which this boy does not, so how, how, indeed can it be possible that this boy is rejecting a plague that has completely removed his humanity? How can a human resist such a power?" He shook his head, and then pointed to Sasuke's eyes, shut in agony.

"These," he said. "These wretched things, these beastly eyes are the cause. It is impossible to think that such eyes could do it, but they do, they are fighting off my master's plague. That disgusting, violent being's eyes are ruining my master's perfect creation. It is annoying, is it not? How I hate it, hate these pathetic eyes which have no purpose other than to destroy and take—they are so greedy, these eyes. They have no respect for perfection, it's pathetic and pointless for them to exist. I should get rid of them, but I am not allowed to." He whipped his head around to face Karin, making her jerk back in shock. "Don't you find that annoying? How I hate having my creativity stifled. But I do not care, not really."

Karin knit her brow as the undead stared at her. "His eyes?"

"Yes," the Plaguemaster said. "_His _eyes…"

"Who—"

Sasuke's scream cut through their conversation, and Karin abandoned her question to stare in horror her companion. There was blood seeping from his eyes now, and dribbling from the corner of his mouth, and his skin looked redder and darker as bruises began to engulf his bare chest and flow outwards to his arms and legs.

"How annoying," the Plaguemaster said, tilting his head and licking his teeth.

"Help him!"

"All that requires is more Plague, girl, a lot more, oh yes, so much more that it makes my exposed spine tingle with the thought. His heart is already stopped but it might begin to beat again soon, that ice might begin to melt, but who knows? Once the ice melts then he might return to what he was before, albeit undead, but with those eyes…" he laughed. "With those eyes, oh how wonderful!" He snapped his head to look at her again. She recoiled in the same manner as before.

"Disciples! Fetch some fresh Plague for us! The highest concentration, highest, I tell you! I will overcome these eyes. By the end of this, His eyes will become ours! Go! Go I tell you!"

Behind Karin, there was movement. The robed undead that presided over the circular, solid iron room were moving out in swift but orderly steps, until Karin was alone with the Plaguemaster and Sasuke.

"Girl," the Plaguemaster said. "Don't you have somewhere to be? I don't like being disturbed in my work."

"You haven't got anything to do right now," said Karin. "Not until they return."

"Says you!" the Plaguemaster snapped, his voice rising in pitch so it sounded like sloshing swamp water rather than bones grinding against each other. "I have many projects. Do you remember that head you brought me? Oh, it's wonderful! You should see how it grows."

"You're disgusting," Karin said.

"Perhaps," said the Plaguemaster. "But I am a genius as well. To think someone could create such a wonderful plague that was not my master! It angers me that it destroys my master's Plague, totally and completely, but I love it how it affects humans and beasts and everything—it makes no distinction, this plague, not like my master's Plague. But humans are the most lovely, they are affected so many ways, so many ways! It is a wonderful plague, I wonder how he did it?"

Karin ignored him. Her eyes lingered on Sasuke for a while.

"Cure him."

"Cure? I'll do no such thing."

"Make him well again, I meant."

The Plaguemaster was grinning, still.

"Of course, of course."

--

"How is he?" Juugo said, calmly.

The tall young man stood, propped against the stone archway that led down a twisting corridor from which Karin had just emerged. The Plaguemaster's territory lay beyond it, the most rotten, foulest quarter of the necropolis Naxxramas. Sickly orange and violet mold clung to the walls and made the floor squish with each step as one went further down. Karin was happy to be on solid ground again.

"He will recover," she said, calmly. "As soon as the Plaguemaster does what is needed."

Juugo nodded. He followed Karin as she moved away, down the steps and into the main foyer—a massive circular room with six branching paths. Karin made her way directly across the room towards the path opposite the Plaguemaster's wing, but stopped when Juugo touched her shoulder lightly from behind.

"What is it?"

"I feel that I must tell you something," he said.

Karin turned, frowning up at the large man. "This isn't a confession is it?" she snapped. She might've been pretty but she didn't need somebody like this having a crush on her, especially when…

"No," he said, quickly. His pallid cheeks seemed to color a little. She blinked. She'd never seen him do that before.

"No," Juugo continued, turning away. "It is about Sasuke."

"I see," said Karin. "What about him?"

There was silence for a while. One reason Juugo liked the foyer was because it was silent. The way a necropolis, a house of the dead, should have been. Not even the sounds of the Training Area comforted him; they were not natural sounds of battle. There was life here where there should have been death. It disconcerted him, so he kept to the foyer where the sounds were distant or unheard, and the feeling of life was stifled. It was like a prison—the prison he had been trapped in, once, waiting to die or kill again. Perhaps that was why he liked it so much. He felt safe, at least a little more than he did anywhere else. He knew what to expect, and the laws of life meant something in this silence, where all around him they were broken and ridiculed.

"I do not think I like the direction he is taking us in." Juugo turned to meet her eyes abruptly. He seemed nervous, and his huge body made it far more obvious with its twitches and shakes.

"You don't?" Karin said, sighing. "Why should I care about something like that?"

"Forgive me," said Juugo, "it is something I have to say, regardless. I thought you may have had similar thoughts."

"You're wrong."

Juugo nodded, and fell silent. Karin did not continue on her way, though, and just kept staring at him. Finally, Juugo spoke again.

"I do not like these changes that I am experiencing."

"You sound like a teenager going through puberty," Karin snapped, ignoring the fact that she was in fact a teenager herself. She was more of one than Juugo was though. She'd had hair for _ages_, and he sounded like he was still as bare as a baby's bottom.

She winced at the image.

"I am finding this transition unpleasant, and I do not like this situation," he said. "It is foolish of me to say this, but I feel that I must. I am losing my humanity."

"Humanity?" Karin rolled her eyes, snorting. "What humanity? Do you remember what happened when we found you? You went berserk, nearly killed Sasuke and I, and if Sasuke hadn't been so much stronger than you, we would've been killed. You hardly remembered anything about it. What kind of human is that?"

Juugo was silent. She almost felt bad, but like always she was able to keep it from piercing too deeply into her thoughts to care too much.

"I know that I am sometimes less than human," said Juugo. "But I am of the opinion that I am still at least slightly human. I can think rationally sometimes, or so I believe, and I enjoy things that other creatures do not. Things above the base instincts that we are all born with. You must understand that?"

"I do," she said. "But I don't think about it. After all, we're not supposed to be human. I'm a shinobi first, and we're just tools."

"Yes," said Juugo. He went silent again.

Karin shifted, trying to hide her growing discomfort. She wanted to leave, but couldn't take her eyes away from the awkward young man before her. She threw him a patronizing glare.

"What the hell is this about, anyways? You said you respected Sasuke. What happened to that?" She crossed her arms, wanting to lean on something, but stopped when the walls reminded her of their frosty disposition.

"I did respect Sasuke. But only for one reason…" He turned away again, and shifted. Neither of them could hear much in the distance; the ancient, immense walls of the chamber, dark and lifeless and bitterly cold did not carry their voices far. It seemed like a crypt here, and while Juugo may have enjoyed it, Karin felt stifled and restless in the silent walls. She did not like the darkness or the silence or the lifelessness. Even the manufactured life of the Abominations was preferable to this encroaching death.

"What reason is that?" she snapped.

"He is…he was…something like a friend, or perhaps he could have been." Juugo looked at her again, lost but as rigid as ever.

"I don't recall you guys ever getting chummy," said Karin. "You barely knew each other existed—"

"That is not true. Kimimaro died to protect him, so I—"

"So what? Does that make you guys friends?"

"Kimimaro was—"

"Your friend, but Sasuke never was. He didn't even know you existed until a few months ago when Orochimaru showed him to you and told him the reason why he has—why we all have—a curse seal! He selected you because he thought you had power and would be a good asset to our team, not because you were his friend or anything like that bullshit." She adjusted her glasses, and brushed some of the wild, tangled hair on the left side of her face out of the glasses' frame. She slowly shook her head, looking exasperated.

"You just don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter if we're human or if we are fucking monsters like the rest of the things in this place—we're shinobi, and we're under Sasuke's orders, so we do what the fuck we have to and nothing else. You should be able to accept that. Kimimaro did."

"Kimimaro did as he was told," said Juugo, softly. "He did it because Orochimaru-sama was his life and his soul. Kimimaro was my friend, but Orochimaru is not my master nor my friend." His arm gave a slight twitch, and his face jerked slightly to the side. His left eye shivered for a moment, and Karin stepped a few feet back, her eyes widening.

"Kimimaro could control me, he helped me try to live as a normal human might. He did not believe I was a monster, and I feel it is a shame to his spirit to accept that I might become one, truly and irrevocably. I feel it is as much a shame to let Sasuke lead us towards that end. I respect Sasuke because Kimimaro died for him. But to lead us to unending not-life is surely not what he would have done." Juugo gave a small shrug. The twitches stopped and he took a few steps away from Karin.

"We are losing our humanity," he said. "Kimimaro, I believe, would not want that. He enjoyed it too much."

"His goal was to become Orochimaru's container," Karin said, directly. "If he loved life and humanity so much, why would he do that?"

"Because he loved Orochimaru more," said Juugo, very quietly now.

Karin was silent. She sighed, and turned to observe the corridor she stood in front of; an old, vicious wind was blowing from it, even though she knew it led to the deepest part of the necropolis.

"I'm not saying I agree with you," Karin finally said. "I'm not saying that Sasuke's wrong in what he's doing or where he's going. I can't make that judgment and nor can you." She straightened her glasses. "But I don't like this feeling I keep getting, this coldness inside of me. I don't like that coldness inside of Sasuke, either. It's…" She shook her head. "It's just wrong. I don't get certain urges anymore, certain urges that make me human and though I know it's not a problem I…" She turned, adjusted her glasses, brushed the straight, perfectly kept hair on her right side. "I kind of miss them."

Juugo nodded, but he didn't say anything. The two of them just stood there for a while, in the silence, until a thought sprung into Karin's mind that she couldn't throw away.

"Where's Suigetsu?"

Juugo shrugged. "I don't know. I have not seem him, but I guarantee that he does not want to see me very soon."

"He's still angry, is he?"

Juugo nodded. "He has every right to be."

"You just kicked his ass, it's not a problem."

"I did nothing. I did not want to hurt those innocents in the village, so I directed my rage upon him. He has a right to be angry, even hate me."

"He does, I'm sure," said Karin, rolling her eyes. "He's a fucking moron, though. Don't know why Sasuke found any use for him when there are dozens of perfectly good fighters like him. He's the only one who seems to be enjoying this as well."

"His heart is black."

Karin snorted and then glared at him. "Nothing's that simple. He's just a moron who doesn't know any better. He's like a little kid who hasn't been taught his lesson. Can't say you're much different, though." She turned, and walked towards the steadily increasing cold. "See you later, Juugo. I'm going to get some sleep."

She didn't turn back to see what his face looked like, but didn't particularly care. The cold was increasing as she walked, and she found it very hard to feel anything as the cold lightly brushed her skin and took her slowly into its embrace.

It was kind of nice in a way. Kind of like how a dream was nice until you woke up, or it became a nightmare.

* * *

"Kira-chan's gonna be furious," Naruto said, scratching his head. He shifted restlessly against the wall of the _Hindenborough's_ inner cabin.

"I suppose she has a reason to be," Sakura said. She looked to the side at Naruto, the only other conscious figure in the cabin. Lee lay in front of them, as comatose as a boy at his coming-of-age party, with the exclusion of any sort of alcohol. The young man was so drugged up on painkillers that Sakura didn't expect him to wake for a while, which was why he needed someone to tend to him—give him water, mostly, and check that his heart didn't stop beating or his lungs hadn't stopped working.

Naruto was staying because he liked listening to Lee's drugged sleep-talk, which more often than not made reference to Sakura-chan and a bottle of chocolate sauce, and it was funny to see Sakura twitch and blush but not hit anything in return.

"I'll have to speak to Lee-kun about some things after he wakes up."

Naruto grinned at her. "He's got some pretty good ideas, I'd say."

"You might be injured, but I'm not above hitting you, Naruto." Her eyes flashed with a menace that only she could conjure at the drop of a hat, something that made Yamato's ghoulish gaze pale in comparison. Naruto drew away slightly, flashing a placating smile and nodding his head until she turned her eyes back towards Lee.

"This was stupid," Sakura said, finally.

"How?" Naruto's grin had faded, and he was trying to catch a view of the sky through one of the small portholes in the cabin.

"It served no purpose, and no matter how we try to rationalize it, it was entirely for revenge, wasn't it? What kind of shinobi are we?" She stared at him. Naruto didn't take her gaze for a moment, still seeking a patch of glorious blue.

"Different ones," Naruto said, softly. "What's so wrong with that?"

"We could've died, Naruto! And even if it was just for avenging Gai-sensei, what purpose was there—?"

"Lots," Naruto said. "I don't think it wasn't all revenge, not how I saw it." He scratched his chin, and then turned and stared at her with his sky-blue eyes. "Sure, revenge was part of it, but I think it was mostly about change. It was like everyone was both a team of shinobi and individuals, they all had their _nindo_ and they were all different and not like what we were taught. Really, when you think about it, it was kind of us showing Gai-sensei that he was a damn good teacher, don't you think?"

"What?" Sakura said.

"He said that change was needed," Naruto said. "Well, we did change things, didn't we?"

Sakura stared at him a moment, wondering where on earth he managed to come up with stuff like this without even thinking about it.

"_Nindo_, eh?" Sakura muttered, leaning back a little, so that her shoulder rested mere inches from Naruto's. "I suppose so. We were fighting for what we believed in, weren't we?"

"Damn straight," said Naruto.

"And what was it?"

Naruto blinked. "What was what?"

"What we were fighting for."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "For Gai-sensei."

"Talking to you, amazingly, sometimes makes my head hurt." She shook her head, but smiled warmly as Naruto laughed.

"Just getting you back, Sakura-chan!"

For a little while longer, they laughed like this. When they stopped, the cabin sank into silence for a while as the zeppelin picked up speed and the engine grew louder and the blustering wind grew fiercer.

"What do you think Tsunade-sama will do when she finds out?" Sakura said.

"Who knows? Hope it's not much."

"It's a serious offense. She might have to do something." Worry crept into Sakura's stomach, and she shifted nervously, brushing against Naruto's shoulder more than a few times. "She might even tell us to quit."

"Don't think so," Naruto said, shaking his head. "You don't have to overreact. Baa-chan's probably pretty lenient about stuff like this. We're all alive, after all."

"She's Hokage. It'll be her duty to punish us, whether she wants to or not, Naruto!" She puffed out her cheeks. "And I'm not overreacting!"

"I'm more worried about Kira-chan's reaction." Naruto said. It was his turn to shift nervously. "I hope she doesn't cry."

"I hope she does," Sakura said, smirking. "It'll serve you right. And anways, what's so terrifying about a crying girl?"

"I don't know what to do!"

"You hug them, obviously," Sakura said.

"It's not that easy…!"

"It is," said Sakura. "Sometimes you don't even have to say anything. But you probably will and anyways, you'll know what to say when the time comes." She smiled. "You're good at that."

"I am?" Naruto said, the dimness thankfully concealing his reddened face. Was she actually complimenting him or was this another one of her tricks?

"Yes," she said. "You know what to say at the most important times, it's not something that everybody has, but you know, you're pretty good at it. If you just do that, you shouldn't have a problem." She looked down at Lee. "Besides, she won't be angry for long, anyways."

"Why's that?"

She blinked. "No reason. It just seems like her. I don't think she's one to hold grudges, do you?"

"No," said Naruto, nodding a little. "I suppose she isn't." He then looked up. "You should get some rest, Sakura-chan."

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "Why? I don't feel tired."

"But you haven't hit me in a while. I'm just a bit surprised. Maybe you're a bit tired." He flashed her a cheeky grin.

She rolled her eyes. "I only hit you when you deserve it. And I admit, it's getting rarer, but I doubt you'll grow out of it. Kira might have to gain some backbone enough to knock you one when you're out of line."

Naruto blinked curiously at her. "Can't see her being like that. Good thing I have you, though!"

"Ah," Sakura said, nodding a little too quickly, trying to keep her eyes fixed on Lee. "True enough."

"But seriously, you should get some rest. We've got like, six hours before we get to Stormwind." He nodded to Lee. "I'll look over fuzzy-brows and I want the opportunity to tease him when he wakes up about all those things he says about you and marshmallows and syrup. It's a man's talk, so you probably won't want to be around for it anyways."

Her eye twitched. "This is one of those times, Naruto."

"I promise I won't use _Oroike no jutsu_. And hey, did you know that when I was in Konoha, Konohamaru showed me this version he'd come up with that—"

Naruto grinned a little later from the cracked floor of the room, as Sakura stormed out, her face flushed and her eye twitching like a hummingbird's wings.

Least she was okay, he thought.

--

The zeppelin landed where it always did, in the expansive clearing between the northern wall of the city and southern wall of the forest of Elwyn. Since Matthias now more often than not made his way to Stormwind and because the goblin traders had returned to business to the world at large Kira had ordered it specially cleared and had planned another zeppelin tower to be built in the center for easier and quicker access. It was a cool day with a soft breeze that lightly touched the forest, which was changing from emerald green to burnt orange as the days crept by.

The shinobi had gathered on deck and by the time they had landed they were shivering in the whipping wind as the zeppelin settled into place in the center of the clearing where the tree branches could do no damage. Naruto spied them first. They stood at the edge of where the grass met the dusty earth of the road that led into the city. One stood in front of the others, the very person he wanted to see most out of all of them but at the same time dreading what might happen. They were a bit too far away for him to judge what she was thinking or if there were any impending tears. He was tempted to ask Neji or put on his gnome goggles to discern her facial expression but he thought better and just swallowed, prepared for the worst. He looked at Sakura, a little nervously, but the girl didn't register his glance. She was staring forwards as well, but for a different reason.

"Oh shit," Shikamaru muttered in front of Naruto. "Look's like word's already gotten out."

Naruto scanned the group. Four of them were guards, one of them dressed in golden robes—the old man, leaning heavily on a crutch with a nurse behind him; Asuma smoking up a storm beside him; Kylia just beside her mistress, and—

"Ero-_senin?" _Naruto mumbled. What the hell was he doing here?

Kakashi nodded. "Looks like they've perfected communication." He sighed. "I wish I'd prepared myself for a chew-out beforehand."

"Ero-senin doesn't chew out anybody," Naruto mumbled. "He's not very good at it, at least."

"Obviously he's never been truly angry with you," said Kakashi. "My _sensei _told me a few horror stories. Besides, chewing out is the least of our worries when Jiraiya-sama is concerned."

Without knowing why, Sakura, Ino and Tenten shuddered and drew slightly away.

"Best get goin' then," Undrig growled. "Dun wanna stay 'ere fer too long."

"Naruto, you go first," Shikamaru said.

Naruto glanced at him. "Why me?"

"You're better with this sort of situation than I am." The young man lifted something from his pocket and put it in his mouth—a cigarette, one of the two he had been given by Asuma. The first he had smoked after their battle with Nefarian, whereupon he had promptly vomited what little food he had in his stomach. The second he had decided to save for when he got back, and met with Asuma personally.

The first one had been for Gai.

"Fine," Naruto said.

The ramp was rickety as ever, though he had never quite noticed it as much as he did now. The wind had died and it was no longer so cold—he was sweating even, and he suddenly grew slightly conscious of how he smelled, which wasn't good, because they had no bathing facilities in Kargath, where water was as scarce as genuine goodwill.

When he stepped off the ramp, onto soft grass—which was quite green—he looked up and was promptly smacked as hard as an adolescent girl's arm could muster.

Naruto hardly staggered, but the slap hurt. Her eyes were piercing, powerful, much like the eyes of her mother's alter-ego but without the madness, fixed solely on two emotions that fought to a stalemate as he watched.

"Don't ever, ever, ever," Kira said, her eyes narrowed as slits, "do something that stupid again."

Naruto rubbed his cheek. It didn't hurt as much as Sakura's did, but he certainly felt what she had wanted him to feel.

He nodded.

"Can't promise a thing."

The blow came from behind this time, driving him solidly into the grassy earth. He recognized it at a moment's notice, even as he spat out a sizeable chunk of dirt and grass.

"Idiot, wait until she forgives you to say something that stupid." Sakura rolled her eyes and smiled at Kira. "He promises."

Though he couldn't see her face, he could feel her smile, and hear her rising laughter, hardly stifled by her hand.

"I know."

Naruto tried to speak, but there was still far too much dirt in his face for him to be understood. It came out as more of a choking sound, which sent Kira into further fits of laughter and even made Sakura begin to giggle.

"I know it's funny," a voice drifted into Naruto's ear from farther away, sending an unconscious chill down Naruto's spine that he'd only felt once before, when he'd accidentally offended the man's "date" for the night by calling her a cow. "But while the drama is cute and all, we have a few things to speak of, don't we?"

Naruto lifted his head from the earth. Jiraiya stood just behind Kira now, staring down at him with an unreadable face. The man then looked behind Naruto, at all the rest of the shinobi standing before him.

"Suppose you start at the beginning," Jiraiya said. "It'll make it more like a story worth telling, which I hope it is, or Tsunade-hime won't be inclined to give it a good review, and you know how _that_ might affect it in the long term." Though Naruto had no idea what he was saying, the way he said it was cause enough for alarm.

"So, who's first?"

* * *

Far across the world, in perhaps the darkest, most cramped little crevasse between the tallest, thinnest huts in Orgrimmar's Cleft of Shadows, two figures stood facing each other. One filled the space, scarcely able to move within it; he was hunched and wore a dark brown cloak that hid only his features, but nothing of his massive physique. The other one was tall and narrow, like the buildings they stood between, dressed in a cloak of velvety dark blue. The larger scoffed at her appearance.

"I'm surprised you didn't just advertise your presence, elf."

The smaller figure's head bobbed as if in laughter. "It makes it that more of a challenge."

"That wasn't the point of this meeting, now was it?"

"No, I suppose not. This is a pretty cliché meeting isn't it, though? In a dark alley, in the middle of the seediest part in town, I feel like I'm in one of those human fiction stories involving rogues who try and solve murders, you know—"

"I don't share your fancy. And cliché has nothing to do with this. We are not in a story, girl, this is very real and we must act quickly, so I'll ask you kindly to shut the hell up and listen to what I have to say."

Neera nodded. There was no remnant of the cheeky smile on her face.

"Sure, go ahead, Golbarn."

* * *

Much faster than last time, wasn't it? Hope you guys liked it. While it didn't focus so much on Naruto, I used it as a chance to build up tension for what's to come, build up a relationship or two, and help introduce the next arc in a better way. We'll see what happens in the next few chapters, eh? Won't be much fighting, but we'll see what happens!

See you guys next week, hopefully!

General Grievous

Next week: _Stormwind, Orgrimmar, Naxxramas, Dalaran_.


	34. Life's Puppets

_Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft. Time you got with the program, buddy. I haven't owned it all along. Time you got a clue, foo!_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

"Aye, sorry to say, but this stuff is useless tay me."

Naruto blinked. "It's what?"

"Useless," the dwarf said, shaking his big, grey beard so that bits of ash fell out, as he observed the large collection of black material before him. It was heaped upon the ground—piles and piles of it, some in huge canvas sheets and some nearly as small as a human's hand, all torn and roughly chopped as if done with a blunt ax. "Aye, cannay do anythin' with this shite. You sure this is dragon'ide?"

"Yeah," Naruto said. He exchanged glances with Undrig, and then looked back at Tenten and Shikamaru, who both observed the piles of dragonhide with fascination. Shikamaru was feeling the material in his hands; it was rough and rigid, not at all like Naruto's silken smooth jacket.

"Well, it's shite dragon'ide. Dinna ken that was possible. See how its been skinned? Wasnay bad skinning, just bad hide. Dinna ken how ye could do this tay dragon'ide, but ye did ay, and it's nay gonnay make anythin' worth wearin'. Sorry about that." The dwarf didn't look sorry at all, just annoyed, and baffled, that dragonhide could possibly fail him in some way.

"Is it possible to do anything with it?" Tenten mumbled, despair growing steadily in her stomach. She'd been hoping for a jacket or something like Naruto's, and Ino and Sakura would kill her once they realized there would be no dresses to make.

"Cannay think of anythin' other than maybe a rug. Not a very nice one either, ay." The dwarf shrugged. He looked at Undrig. "You had something else ye requested, ay? Cannay remember what, but ye should talk to Grimson about it. He's been working on something fierce since ye gave him all that material tay work with. Haven't seen him in a week."

Undrig nodded. "Aye, well, I'll speak to him about it later. We'll be going, unless there's anything you can do."

"Ye want a rug, ay? That's all I can do."

Naruto shrunk, sighing. "Nah, that's it." They left the dwarf, who went back to his little shop, not before throwing an annoyed look at the piles of dragonhide.

"I'll be off, then," said Undrig, nodding to the three shinobi. "Naruto'll be able tay show ye around until the next tram comes. I'll meet ye there, got somethin' for ye, Naruto, and fer the rest o' ye, courtesy o' the new king." He grinned, and nodded. "Drop by him fer a while, will ye? He's been lookin' forwards tay seeing all o' ye, so you wouldnay wanna disappoint 'im, now would you?"

"Suppose not," said Shikamaru, smiling. "We'll be there." He gave the dwarf a formal bow. "Thank you, Undrig-san."

"Ye'd think we'd ay been past all tha' formality? Dinnay mention it, boy." Undrig saluted them all, and then trudged off deeper into the sea of forges that peppered the earth before the looming palace of the former king.

Thauraan did not like the heat of the forges, so he had abdicated to a quieter environment towards the back of the city, shrouded in darkness and pierced by the deep cold of the mountaintop, for it was higher than any of the other rooms in the city.

"Good job, Naruto," Shikamaru said, whipping around to face Naruto as soon as the dwarf had gone. "I'll be getting an earful from Ino about this."

"Me too," Tenten muttered.

"How was I supposed to know it wouldn't be usable?" Naruto grunted, folding his arms back. "I didn't know that technique would damage _everything_ so much. Lesson learned. Besides, there's plenty of dragonhide stuff down south, 'cause that's where all of the leatherworkers live, the trolls. If Sakura-chan and Ino want some dresses than I can just ask them." He sighed, reaching towards the back of his jacket where he could no longer feel the comfortable weight of _Magni's Pride_. "Besides, I'm still recovering from my loss."

"It's a sword," Shikamaru said.

"Magni-jiisan made it. I really liked it." He sighed. "Stupid dragon. How could he change something that's supposed to be indestructible into something stupid like aluminum?"

"Magic," Shikamaru muttered sarcastically. "Try and get over it, you're being troublesome and childish."

Tenten however smiled sympathetically. She had grown attached to a few of her weapons as well, though she would never admit it. Each weapon had a memory, and that—along with the thought of having to pay for more—was what drove her to pick up each an every one of them after a battle. "You'll find another, I'm sure."

"Maybe," Naruto said, shrugging.

"I wouldn't worry about it," said Shikamaru. "Has Jiraiya-san returned yet?"

"Nah," Naruto said. "He's sticking around awhile. He sent Kakashi-sensei back, and is waiting for Yamato-sensei to come back as well."

"Is he going to come back anytime soon?" Tenten said.

"He sent a message the other day. He's going back with the supply ship from Southshore that Kira-chan sent to help. He says he's got a lot of info that can't be told in coded messages or anything like that." Naruto shrugged.

Shikamaru nodded. Naruto led them away from the broiling heat and thunderous calamity of a thousand hammers striking anvils, of metal being beaten into a vast range of shapes, each one tailored for killing or defending, each one as unique as the maker, who poured all of his soul into each work he made. The dwarves did not do half-assed jobs, did not mass-produce weapons. Each weapon was different and was made with the care and control of a master. That was why they were the best.

"I wish I had some money," Tenten said aloud, her eyes enviously following the racks full of true killing tools, simple in design but so perfect in function. The dwarves knew what a weapon was meant for and held no illusions about it. She respected them far more than she could the gleaming polished weapons and hulking armor of the guards of Stormwind.

Shikamaru smirked. "Nice, aren't they?" he rummaged around in his jacket for a moment, fishing out a cigarette and a lighter and began to light up. "They know how to make their weapons."

"Yeesh, Shikamaru, you starting that too?" Naruto said. "Ino-chan'll kill you."

"I don't smoke around her for that reason," Shikamaru said.

"It doesn't make you look cool," Tenten said. "Just smell."

Shikamaru shrugged, taking a drag and making the face of an inexperienced smoker. He coughed a bit. "Can't deny that."

"So why do you do it?" Tenten said. She cast a glance at Naruto, but the blonde didn't seem interested beyond that. His eyes had gone to the structures before them—a looming cavern that would take them up towards the king's chambers, which were still being refurbished. It looked imposing, but not kingly ash the palace Magni had resided in.

Shikamaru shrugged again. "Nicotine addiction, I suppose. And it makes me lose weight."

Tenten raised an eyebrow. Shikamaru rolled his eyes and continued on puffing, the stench of tobacco easily being covered by the stinks of molten metal and fire. There was no way to escape it in Ironforge; even in its most distant parts the fiery smell pervaded, like smog across the high vaulted ceiling of the underground city. But they had not seen any of its residents pay heed to the stench, and Naruto didn't seem to mind it either, even though he could smell far better than _either_ of them.

But Naruto could have just been ignoring it. He had a lot on his mind.

Shikamaru wondered what he had spoken with Jiraiya-sama about. The _Sennin_ had taken Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi, Kira and the old man off to a secluded room in the castle, while the rest had been shipped off to the infirmary to await treatment and rest. The streets had been quieter than Shikamaru had remembered.

More hostile. Not a friendly face had greeted them.

Only the infirmary remained unchanged, but only because it was so busy that nobody had any time to show hostility—injured humans and orcs and even a tauren or two filled the beds, the result of the daily brawls which occurred in the streets and bars. More came every day, though less and less frequently were they non-human; they had taken to the outskirts, where their settlements dwindled. They were leaving, not in mass-exodus but in trickles every day.

The people warmed to them again—as soon as Kira had announced of their achievement the following day: the last of the Black Flight was gone, and the dwarves had sent news of the reception of their new king, Thauraan Bronzebeard, and the impending union of the Ironforge dwarves and the former Empire of the Dark Irons. She spoke of Ragnaros' destruction and the tentative peace present in the Burning Steppes. She spoke of the shinobi who had done this, and the sacrifice they had made because of it.

But the city felt no less like a prison.

For Tenten and Neji it had been doubly worse. Lee had gone off with Kakashi, back to Konoha, to arrange a second funeral for Gai. The first had been held in a small plot in the back of the castle, held by only those Gai had known and those he had given his life for. With no body or even any personal effects left it had just been a pile of flowers and Lee's forehead protector. It hadn't lasted long, not really—Gai had been mourned and shinobi had learnt not to dwell on death.

But it was obvious they still did. Tenten was more talkative than usual, with everyone except Neji, and Neji seemed to have reverted to his previous self before Naruto had 'corrected' his attitude. Even though she rarely spent time with them, Tenten had joined them for this trip. For all of them it was a relief—Shikamaru felt a little sorry for those stuck back at the castle. Jiraiya hadn't let many of them go.

Jiraiya-sama seemed annoyed often now, and Naruto mentioned to them on the way to Ironforge that he wasn't usually like that unless he had something heavy on his mind. But he wouldn't speak of what they had talked about.

"Boring stuff," Naruto said. "And lots of yelling. I got yelled at for being stupid, is what it pretty much was, and that Tsunade-baba's probably going to have words with me when she hears about it. Then he asked Kira-chan a bunch of questions and we told him what was going on and all of that. He also told me about a new ally…"

"Ally? With whom?"

"He was vague," Naruto said, sourly. "That was near the end, though. He said he wanted to keep it a secret for a little while longer, while they still worked out the details and things. Apparently they still haven't totally agreed to an alliance with Konoha and the stupid council members are trying to contest it and all of that politics that I don't really understand or care about."

"You were in there a fair few hours," Shikamaru said, still not convinced.

"Yeah," Naruto said, nodding. "A lot of yelling."

Naruto had recently gotten a little better at lying, but it still didn't sit with Shikamaru.

By contrast, the mood in Ironforge was one that only a group of beings sequestered within a mountain, out of range and touch with the suffering of another kingdom could maintain—contentment approaching normality. The death of their long-time king remained fresh in their minds—but the prospect of a new king, one that had not been eroded by time and suffering and who so far was proving himself to be a very capable learner, was also fresh. The dwarves seemed excited by this new king, and the fact that the previously war torn empire of the Dark Irons would soon be under their control. The blacksmiths seemed most pleased by this. It had been a long time since any of them had worked with dark iron before.

But nothing had been seen of the dark iron dwarves yet. Not one of them had yet set foot within the city boundaries, as far as Shikamaru knew.

He wondered what Thauraan might do about that, if indeed he could do anything at all.

Shikamaru wondered if a boy-king could really do anything to change the world.

Perhaps the world would change him.

* * *

The climb towards his chambers was long; the passage went straight up six flights of stairs, large enough that it might be difficult for dwarves to manage.

"They certainly make it obvious," said Tenten aloud.

Both Naruto and Shikamaru were shaken from their thoughts. "What?" they said.

"That they're compensating for something." She grinned.

Naruto snickered. "Doesn't it? The gnomes are just as bad."

"It's no wonder they're all loud, then," Shikamaru said, a grin tugging at his lips. "I mean, when you were short, Naruto, you could've matched one of them easily."

"Oi! I'm tall!" He paused.

"But where it counts?" Tenten said, smirking.

Both Shikamaru and Naruto blinked, and then stared at her. She flushed and said, "What?"

"Geez, do you joke like that with Neji? Can't imagine him being the expressive type…" Shikamaru said, scratching his head.

"Of course not! Besides, why is it weird when I make a—"

She stopped when they reached a doorway, flanked by well-armed dwarves who gave Naruto winks as he walked by. The next room was small in comparison to the rest—circular, windowless, and simple, nothing like one imagined a child's—or even a king's—to be.

Thauraan sat at the far end behind a large, stone table. He looked up, his face brightened and he cried, "Shikamaru!"

"Yo," said Shikamaru, grinning at the dwarfling. "How's things?"

Thauraan leapt from his seat and waddled across the room, the other dwarf present shaking his head as he stood as well. The ancient sword-master had barely aged a day since Naruto had last seen him, almost two years prior.

"Och," Berlyiro said. "Ye've come to distract him even more than he already is. Thanks, boy."

Naruto grinned at him. "No problem, old man. How are you?"

The old dwarf stretched, grinning. "Och, I'm fine, fine, aye. Tired—comin' outta retirement tay be the chief advisor and steward, as they call it, to ay little brat is not one o' my better choices, I think." Thauraan swiftly turned from where he had been hugging Shikamaru and Tenten to glare at the old dwarf, but he didn't say anything.

"Suits yah, though," Naruto said.

"Aye, I'm good at dealin' with brats, as you taught me." Naruto rolled his eyes and then looked over at Thauraan. The dwarf was deep in conversation with Shikamaru, who just smiled and nodded at whatever the little dwarf spoke. Thauraan looked completely relaxed, though from the speed at which he spoke he must have been nervous.

He looked small in his kingly robes, decked in black, gold and silver.

"I don't think I'm doing so well," Thauraan said.

"You're young. That'll change," Shikamaru said, taking a final drag on his cigarette before tossing it away and fishing out a new one.

"Yer one ta' talk, boy," Berlyiro said, walking over in a much more dignified fashion than his king had. "Barely a man yerself."

"I've done plenty of changing already."

"An ye'll do even more." Berlyiro lifted up a pipe he had taken out. "Gotta light?"

"How are things going for you, Thauraan-kun?" Tenten asked. "In the city, I mean? How do people find you?"

The dwarfling looked at Berlyiro, who was busy getting his pipe to smoke, and gave a small shrug and then straightened as if remembering himself. "It's going…okay. They know I'm young, and they all respect Berlyiro, but they're waiting to see what I can do. They're happy that things aren't going to change too quickly." He spared another glance at Berlyiro. "That's what he says at least."

"Aye, an' it's true." The old dwarf scowled. "But they don' realize things are gonna be changin' regardless. Pretty soon, ay."

"Shikamaru," Thauraan said, turning away from Berlyiro before he could being a tirade (of which he had learned came often and sudden) "I still haven't found them."

Shikamaru slipped from a lazy smile to his normal annoyed frown. "Any ideas?"

Thauraan nodded. "That's why there's nobody else here. I dismissed all of my father's previous advisors."

"Good. You're going to have an election of a sorts, then?"

"I'm going to choose them myself," Thauraan said. "I mean…" he looked at Berlyiro. "With his help, and yours if you can…"

Shikamaru made a small noise in his throat. "I don't know…"

"You probably can," said Naruto. "You'd be good at that."

"You'd be better," said Shikamaru. "I deal with concepts, not people…" he sighed. "Jiraiya-sama wanted us back—"

"But you're good a _jutsu_ and stuff like that. Identifying them."

Shikamaru looked at Naruto. "Why do you think they're affected by a _jutsu_? Could they not have betrayed by themselves?"

"Maybe," Naruto said. "But we already encountered somebody who could use a mind-controlling _jutsu_, and since it's Akatsuki, then, you know—"

Shikamaru thought a moment. "That changes things, I suppose…but still—"

"I'll go back," said Tenten, "and tell him what happened. This is easily more important, don't you think?"

"He wanted Naruto back for training, didn't he?"

Naruto blinked, and then grunted. "How'd you know that?"

"I guessed," said Shikamaru. "It would be important. That's what you didn't want to tell me about, right?"

Naruto glanced at him. "Yeah. Guess I'm still getting used to the fact that you know about…you know…"

"Don't worry so much," Shikamaru said, rolling his eyes. "Was it important?"

"He said it was. Really important."

"Then you should go. It might be something you'll need pretty soon in the future. Jiraiya-sama is an amazing shinobi and he wouldn't say something was important unless it actually was."

"I know," said Naruto. "But you gotta stay. I'll keep one of my clones here as well, just in case."

"Keep several, if possible, so you can get regular updates." Shikamaru turned to Thauraan. "Sound good, your majesty?"

Thauraan nodded. The dwarfling gave Shikamaru a crinkled, joyful smile that only a creature that looked like a slightly larger infant could manage. "Don't call me that, Shikamaru. Just Thauraan."

"Thauraan-sama."

"Good."

Shikamaru chuckled and nodded. "Anything else?"

"Other than you guys gotta get down tay the forge again soon. Bet Undrig's waiting fer ye." He grinned at Naruto. "He's got somethin' fer ye all, I should think. Give ye enough time tay be amazed and still get yer train back."

Naruto perked up. "Does he?"

"Aye," Berlyiro said. "You and the lassie might wanna head down now. The pineapple boy an' His Highness may wanna talk a bit tay figure out who they're gonna pick. He'll give ye the lowdown," the old dwarf waved them off. "Come back soon, though, ye hear? That princess o' yours is gonnay want tay make a speech here soon enough. I don't think people are entirely convinced anymore. They'll need somebody tay shape them up."

Shikamaru nodded, glancing at Naruto. "That'd be your job."

"How come I get the hard stuff?" Naruto muttered. "Fine."

They left Shikamaru in the chamber, waving a quick goodbye and exchanging a final cheeky remark that left Naruto with the feeling of dread that he'd have to confront both Ino and Sakura about the fact that they no longer would have vests and skirts of dragonhide. Berlyiro was already talking as soon as they had left—his excited voice echoed down the chamber.

The trip back was faster, and neither Naruto nor Tenten spoke much. They found Undrig standing at one of the largest forges near the back, right at the steps of the former king's palace. It was hotter than the others, and the dwarf was much older, his hair so grizzled and in such small quantities that he looked like a rock overgrown with fungus.

"There ye are," Undrig said, grinning as he saw them. "Suppose Berlyiro sent ye back?"

Naruto nodded. "He said you had something for us."

"That I do." Undrig turned to the old dwarf, who grunted and set a few black-wrapped packages on the table in front of the forge. The cloth looked very fine and concealed a variety of shapes—one long and thin, one cylindrical, a few hand-sized, and a small satchel that looked like it was filled with coins.

"Ye know that big thing that Nefarian coughed up, that I made ye all carry back?" Undrig said, lifting up the first package—the thin one, about his height.

"Yeah."

"Well, I did it fer ay reason. And this is it. Ye were torn up o'er your last sword being broken, I know, that's why I had this one commissioned especially for ye. Made with the first dark iron o' the Dark Iron dwarves we've worked with for aywhile. And a little something extra, of course—"

He unwrapped the cloth, it fell like silken shadows away from possibly the most beautiful sword Naruto had ever seen.

The scabbard was black and simple, but when Undrig drew it, it gleamed brightly in the surrounding flames. The blade was dark grey and within it Naruto saw fire reflected. Not just in the forge or the glow from the molten iron river, but from deep within. The flames seemed trapped within the reflection, yearning to be free but unable to find their way from the smoky blade's confining edge.

Naruto stared at it.

"This…this is mine?"

Tenten was also staring at it.

"This…this is his?"

Undrig grinned. "Aye. Ye'll find it a bit more difficult tay manage—it's full length, since you're getting bigger and we figured ye'd like a bigger sword tay match that, and its not as durable—dark iron's really durable but it ain't no match for adamantium, but it's got a few things that'll make up for that."

"What's its ability?" Naruto mumbled excitedly, reaching out to touch the blade, which seemed so cool despite the flames reflected within.

""Dinnay, gottay find out fer yourself. Guarantee it'll be different."

Naruto whistled.

"These other things," said Tenten. "What are they?"

"Present for all o' ye who helped in the mission." Undrig's eyes danced. "Ye'll have tay choose who gets 'em, since we only had some o' the material to work with, but it includes a pair o' gauntlets—" he jabbed a finger at the cylindrical package. "A couple of bangles—" he pointed to the smaller packages, "and a few rings an' things. Prime stuff, guaranteed tay be an improvement tay anything else you might have. Each of them have their own abilities as well—but as I said, you've gottay find that out for yourselves."

"Amazing," said Tenten, itching to find out what the other trinkets looked like, and what they could do, but too polite to move.

"Thank you, lass," Undrig winked. "Now, you'd best be going, the tram's aboutay leave. You can look at this stuff on the trip back."

Naruto sheathed his blade, looking at Undrig. "Thanks," he said.

"Best use it correctly, brat," Undrig said. "Don't want you breaking another one."

"Right," Naruto said, rolling his eyes.

Undrig accompanied them as far as the entrance to the tram station, and then bid them farewell. When they had gone and he could hear only their steps and chattering voices he left, making his way back towards the forge. The streets were thankfully deserted, so that nobody was able to seem when he fell to his knees, clutching his head.

"_So what is their plan? Are you in danger of being discovered?"_

"No," Undrig said, breathlessly. His body spasmed, and his fingers bit deeper into his temples.

"_Good. Keep at it, then. When you next have the opportunity…"_

"Aye," Undrig said, nodding to himself.

"_Well done. I have something else to take care of where I am now. Okashira-sama might have something else coming for you soon. Continue to do what you do best, until then, and maybe I'll give you what you want."_There was a dark chuckle within his head, soft and playful, belonging to someone who appreciated irony.

"_Or maybe that's what I want. It doesn't really matter, now does it?"_

Undrig released his temples and stood shakily to his feet. The voice had gone, but he answered anyways.

"Aye."

* * *

"He has not been seen in several weeks, not since the failed meeting," Golbarn said. "Not even by his own personal guard."

"How's that possible?" Neera muttered. She leaned against the side of the wall, the earthy claw rubbing off on her cloak. Her glowing eyes were the only things visible beneath her hood. "There are so many—"

"There's no point in questioning it, when I do not know a thing," Golbarn snarled. "I'm telling you what I know, and that is all. He has not been seen."

"Fine." Neera crossed her arms. "So what _do_ you know?"

"There is trouble in the streets. People are anxious, angry, that Thrall has not addressed them, especially with the concern the death of the dwarf king has brought to our shores. They know of the accusations—"

"How?"

"Rumors, travelers, I should think. We get more of those these days than in the past, and the trolls, who now lie closer than us to the humans, are better informed of their progress than us. Furthermore messengers have come from the human settlements and tried to meet with Lord Thrall, but have been turned away, only to—"

"Be met by people like you, right?" Neera smiled, though it was not readily apparent. "How many others are as concerned as you, and not in the know?"

"Most of the Kok'ron Elite," Golbarn said.

"Those are Thrall's personal—"

"_Lord _Thrall, to you, elf."

"Sorry," she said. The lack of sincerity made Golbarn bristle with annoyance. "_Lord _Thrall's personal guard? How can they be his personal guard if they don't see him?"

"There are two groups within the Kok'ron Elite," Golbarn said. He waved at a fly buzzing by his ear, and tried to get a little more comfortable in the narrow alley that nearly brushed his shoulders with each movement he made. "The outer group—the Urk'ron, who specialize in heavy combat and number the best of Lord Thrall's fighting warriors, and the inner—the Gor'ron—who are primarily shaman who fight alongside Lord Thrall in battle, masters of the Bloodrage that once so afflicted our kind. The Urk'ron have been sent away, and are barred as any other from entering. They say that Lord Thrall himself told them to leave, and to not return until he emerges. Nothing has been heard of the Gor'ron, and some believe that a coup has taken place, with the Gor'ron heading it."

"But you don't believe it?"

"I do not. They have no reason for such a thing, but that is not the only reason."

"What's the other reason?"

Golbarn grunted, shifting his weight again within the confines of the alley.

"Why'd you choose this place if you can barely fit in it?" Neera said, raising one of her long, arced eyebrows.

"It is inconspicuous, especially nowadays. People have more pressing matters to attend to."

"Like what?"

"Like managing a city that suddenly has no leader," he said. "Things have been…degrading, since Lord Thrall has stopped speaking to us. Goblins flourish their destructive trade when Lord Thrall once kept a close eye on what they did and what they sold. Businesses fail—people are leaving for the border regions like Ashenvale, the Crossroads, Mulgore and Thunder Bluff. Our trade has been stifled with the lower regions of this continent and nonexistent with the Eastern Kingdoms. Our economy declines; not much now but unless something is done it will continue exponentially." He growled, and spat to the side, his black eyes blazing.

"I have heard of things across the waters, and I am not impressed. The humans are calling for war."

"It isn't that bad, not yet," said Neera. "They caught the killers of Magni, and Lady Kira has informed her people of what truly happened."

"People will believe what they want to, regardless. They are looking for excuses."

"Please don't treat people with such generalizations." Neera said. "I might be young but I know enough about people to know that."

"You know very little then, elf, about how the world works." Golbarn shook his head. "You underestimate the rotten blood we have with the humans. It will take more than just words and hope to erase that."

"And please don't underestimate the young," said Neera. "We know that but we also know that things can, and will, change. You old-timers need to accept that."

"I am not old."

Neera grinned. "You are by my guess." She suddenly glanced up. Her ears twitched. She frowned.

"What is it?" Golbarn grunted.

"Nothing," she said. "Thought I heard something."

"There are many things to hear."

"Something different, I meant. Now, back to the matter at hand, what exactly leads you to believe that there has been no coup?"

"They have made no announcements, not declared their new regime, for one thing. A coup does not happen in such secrecy and would not take so long if it were possible. I am of the opinion that Lord Thrall would be able to crush any coup by himself."

"Boastful," said Neera.

"Perhaps. Another reason is I've seen something strange in the last few days."

Neera looked up again. "Seen what?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the crack between the rooftops, where she could see nothing but darkness and the dull light of the cavern, purplish against the towering ceiling of the cavern they stood in. The Cleft of Shadows was only partly covered by a dome of rock, the other parts spilling into the rest of the residential area of the city, in the Valleys of Wisdom and Strength.

"A bird of peculiar size and whose origin I cannot identify. I have seen it twice."

Both of Neera's eyebrows rose. "Your powers of deduction might need a bit of work."

"Birds of this size are not common around this area, nor I have ever seen any of such size. The wyvern masters have commented on it as well, but they have not been able to get close enough to see it properly. It disappears before anyone can try to find it."

"Maybe a bird is trying to take over Orgrimmar," Neera said. She rolled her golden eyes and wrapped herself tighter in her cloak. "I don't understand, what does a bird have anything to do with this? Shouldn't you be trying something else? Like actually going in and trying to find Lord Thrall?"

"It has been done."

"And?"

"He merely sends them out. They speak of nothing out of the ordinary."

Neera frowned. "That's a bit odd."

"Yes," said Golbarn. He fingered the hilt of his sword. "I am not in the habit of defying my leaders. But I need to know what is happening. It is something wrong. In more ways than one."

"How?" Neera asked. Her eyes went up—there was that sound again, like creaking and clinking wood. It was not uncommon for the place they were in, but it just sounded…

"I've questioned those who forced entry—they are not normal, not anymore, but I cannot identify what is wrong with them. I have little experience with such _jutsu_. But I think something must have been done to them when they were inside."

"So if you think there was something done to them…" Neera shifted towards the right wall and let her hand fall to the triple-bladed star that hung around her waist, the typical weapon of any Darnassian Sentinel. She listened carefully. "Why don't you do something about it?"

"What are you doing, girl?" Golbarn snapped. "What do you hear?"

"I don't know," Neera said. She frowned. "Let's keep moving, I want to get out of here as soon as possible—tell me on the way. Do you speak any other languages other than Orcish and Common?"

The orc growled. His eyes were on the rooftops now as well. "No."

"Then keep it in Orcish."

"Do you speak such a thing?" he said, in Orcish.

"I've been learning." She smiled.

He nodded. She began to back up, slowly, and then very quickly when the reached the edge of the alley, near the wall of the cave. There was space enough for them to fit, and she began to walk alongside the cave wall, as Golbarn scraped along behind her.

"We can't do much about it," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because I've begun to see changes in more than just those who have entered Grommash Hold. I realize that these changes might have been present long before. Whatever has happened did not happen recently. Lord Thrall was not even the beginning, and it shames me that I did not notice the changes, so subtle they were." He growled as a bit of the wall, which stuck out at various angles in jagged outcroppings, scratched his arm. "Do you hear anything else?"

"No," she said. "Keep moving."

"We should stop our discussion. You must think we have been compromised."

"Maybe," Neera said, but she was frowning, still. "But by what?"

"Discover it for yourself."

Neera had vanished before she finished the sentence. She landed lightly, silently, on the roof of the hut next to her. Her glowing eyes saw everything, even in the darkness—especially in the darkness. But there was nothing, no movement, not a soul.

She listened again. She could hear no creaking sound; it had been odd, almost like bones working together towards movement. But bones were not wood. Furthermore, how had it discovered her and Golbarn in such a tiny, remote area?

She heard a sudden tumbling of rocks and a scuffling behind her. Neera turned to see Golbarn hauling himself onto the roof, swearing silently under his breath. The orc seemed even bigger now that walls did not contain him. She hadn't remembered him being so _huge_.

"Find anything?" he said.

"No," she answered, turning and giving the area another once-over. "But I doubt it was my imagination."

"Then leave. Now."

"We haven't finished. I don't have much to tell Lady Tyrande. What do you think is happening, honestly, and how do you intend to fix it?" She fixed him with her golden gaze. He scowled.

"We have been infiltrated. By whom, I don't know, but why is an easy guess, do you not think?"

Neera gave a very slow nod. "Yes, I suppose so. Now we just need to know who…"

"Just go. Return to your queen. I will send word when I need aid. You have a hearthstone, do you not?"

Neera nodded. "Of course. Saves the trouble of going back through security. Take care of yourself."

Golbarn nodded briskly. It was hard to tell whether the look on his face, with his lips slightly peeled back as if he were about to snarl, was a glare or his attempt at a smile. She decided on the latter, nodded and reached into her pocket to take her hearthstone.

She was mid-way through the seals required when it struck.

It came from the shadows, barely one itself and moving so quickly that Neera had no time to turn and register what was happening before it was in front of her, snatching her hearthstone from her loosened grip and then away back into the shadows. She gave a shout, and Golbarn moved. His blade was free—it gleamed red and silver even in the darkness. He struck at the shadows, his blade carving through clay and wood as he sought out his foe.

But it was gone. There was only a distant clinking and clattering, but that disappeared too.

"What the hell was—" Neera began.

"Shut up," said Golbarn. He was breathing heavily, his great nostrils flaring. "Did you see it?"

"No, I—"

"Its limbs clacked like a doll's when it moved. I did not see anything else—it was hiding in the darkness, in that thick black cloak." He sheathed his sword, and glared, trying to listen for it in the distance. But by now even Neera could not hear it, it was gone and to where they had no idea.

"You're stuck," Golbarn said.

"I know," Neera said. "What now?"

Golbarn growled. "We find out what's going on. I'll send for the humans, especially the brat. I want to know exactly what is going on."

"How?"

"Will I send for them?"

"Yeah."

He thought a moment.

"I have my ways."

"Hey," Sakura said, poking her head through the door. "Want to go for a walk?"

Kira glanced her way from where she sat staring out the hole in the wall of the chapel. It had yet to be fixed because of a stone shortage, which were en route from the quarries to the north. Kira sat in the middle of the room astride a chair, her back to the bookshelves, resting her arms on its back.

"I suppose," she said, getting up and walking over. Tsuwabuki sat on her haunches outside, behind Sakura, and moved to brush against Kira in friendly greeting. Kira smiled and stroked the fox, who was large enough now to reach her stomach. Her fur was darker than before as well, like the blade of a polished sword.

"He doesn't take you anywhere anymore, does he?" Kira said, smiling.

Tsuwabuki responded. "_**He made me stay, and I don't like Ironforge's smell. But you can't understand me anyways, so I don't know why I make the effort."**_

The walk down the hallway and steps were relatively silent, but not uncomfortably so. Tsuwabuki padded behind the two girls, as softly as if she were not there.

"That's a pretty top," Kira said, noticing the change in Sakura's clothes. Rather than the red sleeveless vest she always wore, Sakura now bore a long-sleeved crimson shirt, loose around the sleeves so they covered her arms but tight around her bust and showing what scant cleavage Sakura could manage. It was made of silk. "Where'd you get it?"

"Thanks," she said, smiling. "I made Jiraiya-sama buy it for me, since my other one was quite pretty much ruined." She tugged at the sleeves. "Doesn't suit me terribly, but I still like it."

"It suits you perfectly," said Kira, shaking her head. "But it could do with a bit of green, to match your eyes."

"I was thinking that," Sakura said. "Also, I don't know about the chest—" she gripped her breasts and made a face at the amount of cleavage that formed. "It'd suit someone like you better."

Kira rolled her eyes. "Of course not! Red makes me look strange, and there's plenty to see." She glanced down at her own chest, covered by the white robe she wore. "Besides, at least you can show off what you have, I'm not allowed to wear anything Benedictus considers 'indecent'."

"There's still more there than what I've got on show," Sakura said, grinning. "How did you do it?"

"I didn't do anything," Kira said, blushing a bit. "They just sort of…grew."

"They always do," said Sakura with a sigh. "That's the same thing Ino and Hinata told me. I've got an edge of Tenten, though, if only a little. I tried everything, but apparently they've reached their limit in me."

"Of course they haven't," Kira said. "We've just barely hit puberty. You've got plenty of time to grow."

Sakura opened the door, flushing their faces in the sunlight that glazed the courtyard gold. It was a brisk day, slightly windy but pleasant as they walked towards the gate, nodding to the saluting guards they passed, stopping when they reached the sprawling city below them, and then abruptly turning along the castle walls framed by the year's flowers, gently withering at the approaching winter, not knowing where they were going but perfectly aware that that was the purpose of a walk.

They talked about more things like this—little things that normal girls spoke of; things Kira rarely talked about with Kylia. Gravity did not darken their conversation; there were no intruding thoughts of what the future might bring or how to solve the current problem. Both girls merely relaxed in pleasant, harmless chatter.

It was so easy to fall into, for some reason. Sakura talked a lot, but not in a boring way, introducing fresh topics before conversation could peter out, each one making Kira hungry for more. She spoke at length about the history and politics of their world, things that Naruto hadn't bothered to learn about, but still fascinated Kira to no end.

They settled behind the castle, facing the vast forest that lay beyond the city walls. They could see the mountains in the distance. Tsuwabuki lay behind them like a large cushion, just listening and enjoying the sun and the fresh air.

"Did Lee return with Kakashi?" Kira asked, after a moment's silence of just watching the fiery sprawl of autumn's trees.

Sakura gave a very small nod. "Kakashi-sensei wanted a funeral in Konoha as well."

"I'm sorry I couldn't provide a better one."

Sakura shook her head. "You did well enough. Gai-sensei would've enjoyed it, I think."

It had been brutally short. A quiet affair, surrounded by only those Gai had known and those he had died to protect. It had been a sunny afternoon, warm as well for the season. It had taken place in the gardens behind the castle, just a few words and an hour's silence. There was no picture to put up or body to pray over, just a small wreath of flowers and a Konoha _hitai-ate _placed over it.

So simple, so quick, yet it would remain with Kira forever.

"Do you think he will come back?" Kira asked.

"Of course," said Sakura. She smiled at Kira a little. "Lee-kun likes this place. I don't think he couldn't, not when Gai-sensei gave his life for it, you know?"

"Yes," said Kira. She paused. "That man, Jiraiya-sama…when do you think he will let us meet these allies of his?"

"He was pretty vague about it, wasn't he?" said Sakura, frowning. "Soon, I think—I'm curious to know who they are."

"As am I," Kira said. "But happy that we have more help."

"Same. It must be another Hidden Village—I can't imagine which one, as the Hidden Sand is already with us, the Hidden Mist and Stone would never join us, neither would Cloud…I don't know much about Hidden Rain or Grass, or it could even be any number of the smaller villages on the border countries—Hidden Star, Ice, Waterfall…it could be any of them."

Kira nodded. "But could it be anyone else?"

"I don't think so." She glanced to the side again. "Has anything come from—"

"Lord Thrall?" Kira shook her head. "No." The worry was apparent in that one word.

"Something has to be going on."

"It is impossible to say at this point." Kira shrugged.

They fell into silence again. It was less comfortable than the last one, but neither knew what to say. The silence one got before in desperation, one of them had to bring up something that neither knew if they should talk about it at all.

"I have a question," Sakura said. Her voice wavered a little as she spoke. She cleared her throat.

Kira looked at her. "What is it?"

"It's a bit odd, and a little sudden."

"That doesn't matter," said Kira. "Does it need to be asked?"

"I think so."

"Okay."

Silence. Sakura shifted uncomfortably as she fought for the right words.

"Do you…_like_…Naruto?"

The words tumbled out, quicker than Kira was ready for them. She blinked and opened her mouth to answer before realizing it wasn't as simple a question as she had expected, and the answer was not readily available. "What?" she managed.

"Do you like him? You know…that kind of 'like' that isn't the kind of like that could be taken from that sentence. The other kind of 'like' that girls like us are supposed to know about…" Sakura swallowed. "That kind of 'like'."

There was silence again, as Sakura waited patiently for the answer. Kira stared at her, and then nodded, but didn't speak.

"Ah," said Sakura, nodding.

They sat silently. The breeze seemed a little colder and the sun a little less bright. Sakura felt something strange rise up within her. It made her mind jump, the information—usually so carefully organized—jumbling together so that she could hardly concentrate on anything. This was way different from anything she had ever felt. What was it?

Not jealousy, no—there was no basis for that. Kira had just said something about what she felt, nothing that could inspire jealousy. But what?

Kira cleared her throat.

"Do you?"

Sakura blinked back. She almost answered "no", almost, but somehow couldn't quite let her lips release it. It sat on her tongue, and died in agony. She was aware that this time the silence rested on her but she didn't know what to say.

"I…really…" she gave a small shrug, "…have no idea."

"Not at…all?" Kira asked, very quietly.

"Some," said Sakura. "But it's just…I've never…it _feels _different."

"What do you mean?"

"From how I felt about…" Sakura trailed off. She glanced at Kira. "Have you heard about this?"

"A little. I'd like to know more, though."

So Sakura told her. Sakura didn't know how long it took, lost in her memories; she just kept on talking until there was nothing left to say. She found it so easy—as if she was just speaking quietly to herself, and Kira was not even there.

"So it's weird," Sakura finished. "I just don't know how to—"

"Figure it out," Kira said.

Sakura nodded.

They fell silent.

"We should stop talking about this," Sakura said.

"Why?"

"Because," Sakura thought for a moment. "We just became friends. This sort of thing, in my experience, generally leads to us not being…you know…friends…"

"At the moment," Kira said, quietly. "Does it really matter?"

Sakura glanced at her. "What?"

"All of this…" Kira gestured vaguely about. "There's so much happening—do you really think we have time to deal with this? I mean, this is really nice…" she smiled softly at Sakura. "Talking with you, I mean. I've never been able to have normal conversation with anybody, not even Kylia—she always insists on putting my identity as the princess before my identity as Kira. You're probably the first person I've ever had the chance to talk about with such casualness. I don't have the same experience as you, I know, in this sort of thing—"

Sakura cut her off. "I hardly have 'experience'."

"You have more than I." Kira shook her head. "What I mean is, I do not want this to stop, no matter what. I feel I will need this sort of conversation, even if just a little, in the coming months and I don't think it's possible for anything to come of this particular topic of conversation at the moment…" She sighed. "There is a war. I can hardly think of these things at this point in time—especially with Naruto."

"He's a bit thick, I suppose." Sakura said, smiling.

Kira nodded, also smiling. "I also think it would complicate things unnecessarily. Perhaps we could continue this conversation some other time, then?"

Sakura looked at her. Her smile seemed so natural, casual, unburdened. It would've looked in place on a mature woman who had experienced much in her time and knew how to prioritize. But it didn't sit on the face of a young, naïve girl who had not even begun to experience the things that girls their age should already be knee-deep in and who had not even begun to learn to deal with these strange, new feelings.

But Sakura understood.

"Sure," she said, and smiled back.

She's afraid too, Sakura thought. Just like me.

"What a lovely conversation. Didn't know you had it in you, Sakura-chan." A voice fell, laden with suppressed snickers, from above them. The girls jumped and glanced up to the top of the wall. Jiraiya crouched just on the edge, his superior grin mixed with the usual amount of sleazy interest that made him epitomize Naruto's affectionate nickname.

"Jiraiya-sama!" she called. "Did you—"

"Heard only a bit of it, wasn't really listening," he answered, laughing. "Don't mind me. Just gathering information."

"There isn't a bath hall for miles!" Sakura shouted, glowering up at him.

Then, it occurred to both of them that…

Both girls shuddered unconsciously.

"Don't flatter yourselves!" he roared. "I don't perve on kids."

"Is there something we can help you with?" Kira called.

"Just wanted to talk," said Jiraiya. "About a few things, neither here nor there. We can meet Yamato and Sai-kun back inside, since it involves them too."

"Are they back?" Sakura said.

"Yep! Let's go, you two." The giant hermit turned and disappeared behind the wall.

The two girls got up and followed, just as night began to fall.

Grommash Hold stood alone at the top of a hill in the Valley of Wisdom, at the entrance to the Cleft of Shadows and the hidden slums of Orgrimmar. Outside it had once been an active place—guards would come and go, people would pass by on the lower streets in awe, merchants would sell their goods along the streets (it was the most difficult spot to get); it would have been lively, the epicenter of the greatest city in Kalimdor.

But now it was silent.

Alone.

It seemed abandoned; a skeleton of the glory that it once had housed. The doors were shut and locked; no guards could be seen along its battlements.

But if anyone had been there, they would've heard a slight rattling approach it. Nobody would've found its source—it disappeared abruptly as it rounded the palace, approaching it from behind, through a hole hidden within the rock, unknown to anyone but those who had built the place. To small to be noticed.

The figure disappeared within it; a mouse could have hardly squeezed through, yet the man-sized being slipped through the hidden _jutsu_ easily.

It emerged behind a throne of bone and skin, raised on a dais. The click-clacked to the throne's left side and dropped something into the waiting hand of the one who sat upon it.

"Utter obedience," the man said aloud. He lifted the hearthstone and showed it to the sole figure in the room, who lay prostrate before him. "What you seem not to even think of cultivating."

"Some of us have a heart," the green-skinned figure growled, miserable in comparison to the black-clad man atop his throne.

"That's no reason for anything," the man on the throne said. "Just another word for pointless emotion, don't you agree?"

"You continue to mock me."

"And you continue to question my mockery. Is it not the duty of those in power to mock those who do not have it? Is that not," the man smiled pleasantly—not widely or full of humor, just as if the look might offer some comfort, even if it did not reach his eyes, "…what the natural order of things dictates?"

"You have strange views."

"Maybe strange in the open. Everyone thinks of them."

The orc growled. "Why not kill me?"

"Why question that which is not going to occur at your insistence that it should?" The smile stayed in place.

"I insist nothing."

"In your words."

"And you presume to see anything else?"

The man did not laugh, just smiled. "I suppose you're right. But I learn to understand people, especially when I have seen more of what they contain than most people ever will through observation and philosophy."

"Their flesh is not the same as their souls. People are not made by skin, bones and blood."

"Perhaps not." The man cocked his head to the side. "But it depends on what your definition of a person is."

"You are not included in it."

The man shook his head. "I am human."

"I see nothing human in you."

"Then you're not looking hard enough. It is perspective. This," he gestured to the figure by his side, tall and gaunt and clad in red, still as death, "was once a man. I simply replaced a few organs and blood and flesh. By your definition, he should remain a man, should he not?"

The orc was silent.

"He is not a man," the black-clad man said. "He is a puppet. But I suppose that depends on perspective as well."

Akasuna no Sasori began to move his fingers as if to a tune. The figure in red began to move as well, dancing a sort of jig.

He continued to smile on Thrall, Warchief of the Horde, from the throne.

"Some would say a man is a puppet, pulled by the strings of life. If so, that would make both of us men—and this our brother. But I suppose we must take into account…"

He raised his other hand and moved the fingers slightly.

Thrall's arm twitched and rose, imitating the gesture.

Thrall's eyes, electric blue, burned with fury and his teeth were bared in hatred.

"…who controls that puppet."

Sasori stopped making the puppet in red dance. He guided Thrall slowly to his feet, and waggled his fingers.

"And I suppose that if I am controlled by life…"

Thrall began to slowly sway from side to side. His movements were jerky and unresponsive. He continued to look on the man who now stood before him.

"…and you are controlled by me…"

Thrall began to dance, haphazardly as if tugged by strings that were not there. He closed his eyes, shame overcoming him.

"…then that makes you…"

The smile was still there, the same as ever.

"Not even a man."

I apologize for the lateness—I had exams in between writing this chapter, and with the onset of summer comes the onset of that beginning laziness. I don't even have a job yet…ugh…

Well I realize it isn't much of a "break" for you guys, the characters are getting some rest and a chance to figure out things for themselves.

The Jiraiya-conference scene was too tedious to reenact, since it contains mostly information that you guys know of. Nothing really new that wasn't revealed already in the chapter.

Also, I apologize for the changing accents of the dwarves. I like to experiment with Scottish accents and after reading a Scottish play for my English class (_Gagarin Way_ by Gregory Burke), I think the Dunfermline accent is pretty nice and kind of suits the dwarves in a way. It'll probably change again…sorry!

And before Warcraft fanatics get on me about Thrall, just wait a moment. Take a chill pill, if you will—if you have concerns about it, just wait a bit, or if you want to make a claim about Thrall' power level in comparison to Sasori's, also wait a moment because I don't want you guys comparing my Sasori to canon Sasori. They're a bit different, if you haven't noticed.

I'll say this much. Wait for the next chapter, and you'll find out what happened.

Maybe.

:)

I won't see you guys for a few weeks—I'll be writing the chapter in my head and on my napkins on the plane, as I'll be in Egypt for three weeks starting Friday. I hope you guys enjoy your June, and expect to see another chapter sometime in July! Sorry :(

General Grievous


	35. The World

_Disclaimer: I spelled this wrong the first time I typed it. I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

--

The great hall was almost empty, save for the two slight figures near the back, half-obscured by shadow. Kira wasn't sure they were there until Jiraiya greeted them. They appeared quite suddenly. No sound, no sign of movement, like wisps of smoke drifting on the wind.

She'd never get used to it.

"We're here, Tenzou," Jiraiya said, with a grunt and a nod in the man's direction.

"Yamato, Jiraiya-sama," Yamato said, with a stiff bow and no expression. "Just Yamato. Where is everyone?"

"Naruto'll be back tonight," said Jiraiya. "Kakashi's back in Konoha with Lee. I suppose you've heard about Gai

Yamato gave a very soft nod. "Briefly. I wish I could've paid my respects sooner."

"I'd rather he hadn't died at all," Jiraiya said, shrugging. He glanced behind him at the two girls, as they came in. "Sakura, would you mind rounding up the troops? Benedictus is on his way over but I'd like whoever's left in town to be here as well. This'll be relevant to them too."

Sakura nodded. "Right." She nodded briefly to Sai and then disappeared in much the same way Yamato and Sai had appeared. Kira had forgotten she could do that.

Jiraiya glanced at her. "You should probably sit down. We might be in for a wait." As she did, he returned his gaze to Yamato. "So what's up?"

"Shouldn't we wait?" he said, looking patiently at Jiraiya, hardly moving.

"I'm too damn curious. I also need some time to think about it before we do anything."

Yamato nodded. "The organization known as The Syndicate is indeed involved with Akatsuki." His tone was clipped as he fell into "debriefing mode." He didn't like to embellish, though he knew Jiraiya was somewhat the opposite.

"How?"

"They seem to be subordinates," Yamato said. "They hold to a rigid, set routine, which as far as I am aware, seems to be entirely based around gathering money, or the equivalent in precious metals, and perhaps weapons as well. Every day we were there they would arrive with more goods, and they would tally it all up, meticulously and without fail after every sundown. They seemed to have a quota which needed to be filled every day, and would send out more men if this quota was not met by the end of the day. They had no breaks, and acted business-like in every interaction with each other. No camaraderie, no carousing, not even polite conversation, nothing."

"What connects them with Akatsuki?"

"We observed a member there," Sai broke in. He wasn't smiling, which to Yamato, and only him, was odd. "Dressed in their staple cloak. He was very careful, using only code in his interactions, as if he knew we might be watching. I think he instilled this mentality in them—I think he was their organizer and leader."

"He might've been," Jiraiya muttered. "What village?"

"Waterfall."

"Big guy? Wore a mask? Strange facial features, dark skin, even darker eyes?"

Sai nodded.

Jiraiya glanced at Kira. "Sound like anybody you know?"

Kira nodded quickly. "Very much like the one who attacked us. The one that Naruto killed, but whose body—"

"You never found," Jiraiya said, nodding. He frowned, staring somewhere between Yamato and Sai but at neither of them directly. "Then again, you have the still-living head of a man in your dungeon. I guess it's not totally unheard of for a man to come back after being killed." He paused. "Especially here. What else?"

"There is a third party," said Sai, before Yamato could. The boy barely smiled at that, but quickly crushed it. "Also involved with Akatsuki."

"Who?" Jiraiya said, his gaze as intense as a raptor's following its prey.

Kira blinked. The man, whom she hardly knew and what she did know was through Naruto, was nothing like the perverted stranger she had expected. Short, direct, quite serious, nothing like the "ero-sennin" that Naruto spoke of. But then again, he was said to be one of the best shinobi. Ever. If that was measured in their terms, then there was far more to him than just battle strength.

"We are not sure," said Sai. His face twitched, but no smile appeared. He was evidently trying, thought Kira.

"Description?"

"Purple robes, and a symbol embroidered on the breasts of their cloaks." Sai lifted out a piece of paper, which he handed to Jiraiya. The man opened it, scanned the paper, and frowned.

"Never seen it before in my life," he said. He glanced at Kira. "Have you? Here." He handed her the paper. It took Kira a minute to recognize the mark, smeared as it was by the long-dried rain. She gasped.

"That's…Dalaran…?" she said. She looked at the paper, turning it a bit, and then at Sai, confused. "You sure it was this? You couldn't have mistaken it?"

"No," said Sai. Again the twitch, but again he restrained himself from smiling. "Is something wrong? What is Dalaran?" He cocked his head to the side, his eyes curiously squinted as if he was smiling, but not.

Aware that Jiraiya was watching her keenly, his eyes slightly narrowed in concentration, Kira hurriedly explained. It was hard when such an intense gaze was focused on her, and she couldn't forget Naruto's continued mentioning of the man's weird 'habits.'

"It's a city—a city-state, to be more precise. It is far north of here, at the foot of the Alterac Mountains. It might have been the most powerful city to have existed in the past, where all of the mage-lords lived and where nearly all _jutsu_ created in the past two centuries was developed. It was run by the _Kirin_ _Tor_—a council of the most powerful magi in the world. It was attacked during the Third War by Arthas Menethil and his Scourge, and nearly destroyed. But since they have erected a time-space wall around it, protecting it and allowing them to rebuild…they have since not been seen by anyone, save for a few chance sightings around the area of the dome." She thought a moment. "As far as I know, at least. They were highly respected, though, and most of the human world consider them allies."

"Magi—they're _jutsu _users, like us, right?" Jiraiya's eyes were frighteningly intense.

"Yes," Kira said. "In a way, I suppose." She fidgeted. She'd never felt quite so on edge when talking with somebody. There seemed to be power in everything he did or said. Much like Tsunade, but without her womanly tact.

"In a way?"

She nodded, brushing hair out of her eyes, avoiding his gaze. "They are not physically trained, only mentally. They practice your _ninjutsu _and _genjutsu_, but nothing else."

Jiraiya nodded. "So they're with Akatsuki, then? Interesting."

"That doesn't make sense," Kira said.

"Why not?"

"They would not ally themselves with a group like that—especially a group that has such intentions for the world."

"You said it yourself that they've holed themselves up for ages, so what would they know about the current world?"

"I—" Kira stopped short, feeling foolish for overlooking something so obvious. She had no answer, and her face burned because of it. It struck her then that Benedictus had never had much kind to say of them. Weak-minded, overambitious fools he had called them, despite using their techniques with abandon.

Jiraiya seemed to take pity; he gave the girl a light smile and then turned back to Yamato.

"Anything else?"

"Yes—"

The doors slammed open, flooding the room with the light of the hall, and in echoing din and lingering creaks, Benedictus, attended by Kylia, hobbled into the room. His golden eyes flashed as brightly as Jiraiya's black ones, as he stopped before the much taller, barrel-chested Jiraiya, looking a thousand years older.

"Starting without us?" His voice was gruff, annoyed. His breath was short as he hobbled past to a chair and sat down, growling and panting.

"I couldn't wait," said Jiraiya, watching him.

"That is what old men do," Benedictus said. "Just because you can walk does not mean you are a young man. Have some patience."

"Are you alright master?" Kira muttered, walking over to him. She bent down, looking into his eyes. Though intense, they were much easier to look into. Perhaps it was because she knew him so well, perhaps because she knew him not to be quite so taken with ladies that she could meet his eyes squarely. But it was a different sort of intensity, not driven, focused like Jiraiya's, only angry and annoyed, already slightly fading.

"I'm fine," he breathed. "Just old and useless." He glanced at Kylia, who stood at his side. "Thank you, Kylia. A young girl like you should not have to wait on an old man hand-and-foot."

"It's fine," the girl said quietly, smiling just as softly.

"You were saying?" Jiraiya's voice drew attention back to him.

Sai nodded.

"They vanished as soon as an exchange between the Akatsuki member and the Dalarans was completed. But before that, he killed one of his members. I do not know how, but a lot of blood was expelled. The man's body was gone when I checked the shack, but there was enough blood to say that he was dead. I found bone fragments as well, though only a few."

Jiraiya nodded. He frowned.

"What is going on?" Benedictus snapped. "What has happened?"

"Tell you later," said Jiraiya. "Let's wait for the others to arrive. I've got some things to think about." He nodded to Yamato and Sai. "Thanks you two. Think you can do it one more time?"

Yamato nodded shortly. Sai finally lost it, and broke into a wide smile. "Of course," he said.

There was not much talking until Sakura arrived fifteen minutes later. Jiraiya sat by himself with knitted brows, and he seemed older, as old as Benedictus. The only movements made in the room were Sai's attempts to rein his cheery, empty smile and Kira's ever-moving eyes. She felt nervous, impatient, and her thoughts did nothing to relieve this.

She knew that Dalaran must have had reasons for joining with Akatsuki—the most obvious being that they knew nothing of the organization's dealings in Naruto's world and only of their power and array of unique abilities; any mage would be intrigued by somebody who could survive mortal wounds or make puppets from human beings. Their alliance might be purely a chance to study the 'creatures' that formed Akatsuki, strange and unique as they were.

But she didn't think so. Perhaps Akatsuki had infiltrated their ranks? She didn't know how, but if they had managed to get a traitor into Ironforge—the most secure of any fortress in the world—then maybe they had slipped one or several into the Kirin Tor. These traitors, if numerous enough, could do anything the remainder of the council might oppose. Such was the fault of their magocracy, or indeed any council.

But still…

It unnerved her that this group, originating solely in Naruto's world, had such a handle in her own. The Syndicate, perhaps even its affiliate—the Defias Brotherhood—had once been a terrible nuisance for both the Alliance and the Horde, and that had only been when they had been run-of-the-mill thieves and highwaymen, pillaging the surrounding villages for a purpose that they had long since forgotten. If organized by a group of cunning and extremely powerful nukenin—themselves thieves and highwaymen, only worse—then the odds were they would be even more dangerous, especially since they had regained purpose in their actions, no longer the simple acquisition of wealth and esteem.

But where else could they be?

Where else in this world did Akatsuki exist, pulling strings? How could nine people from another world have such power in this one?

And if they had footholds in ever major nation—then did that also include the nations not part of her alliance? Had they snuck and seemed into every corner of every civilization or group in this world, which at once had been so great and far-reaching, and now seemed so terribly small.

Small enough to fit in a metaphorical hand?

She realized that was the greatest problem that faced them. The Lich King was a true and obvious threat, making no attempt to disguise itself, a crawling glacier, overtaking everything in its path.

Perhaps Akatsuki was an iceberg, its tip for the world to see when the real danger lay beneath.

* * *

"I have a question, Naruto," Tenten said, growing bored of the endless darkness around them and the nauseatingly monotonous flicker of light overhead. She hadn't spoken much to Naruto since they had gotten into the tram, as they had both been too interested in their shiny new weapons to make much conversation other than low whistles, gasps and loud exclamations to look at a certain part of a weapon every ten or so seconds.

Naruto looked up. He was bored himself, but instead dwelt on past things that he didn't _like_ thinking about, but came to his mind too often to bother shooing them away, so he was grateful when she spoke.

"What?"

"Do you have someone you like?"

Naruto blinked at the question, and a blush rose on his cheeks, making him glad of the poor lighting. "Dunno. Why?"

"Curiosity," she said. "And what do you mean you don't know?"

"I haven't had much time to think about it?" Naruto said, hoping that by phrasing it as a question she wouldn't ask anything else. He shifted a little uncomfortably and glanced out to the speeding darkness, realizing that he didn't have the excuse of staring out the window to stop conversation.

Sure, he liked talking, but he didn't like talking about things like this…

Tenten frowned at him. "You must have _some_ idea."

"I do, but it's…you know…complicated…" he mumbled. "I don't really understand what's going on, anyways."

"Maybe I can help."

Naruto glanced at her, squinting. "Since when are you an expert on love advice?"

Tenten rolled her eyes. "I'm not, I just happen to talk about it far more than you and I've at least attempted to grapple with it before. Have you?" She leaned forwards to get a better look at his face. She couldn't tell if he was frowning or scowling with the obnoxious flickering of passing lights above.

"Not really," he confessed, feeling a needle of worry lance his stomach. To be honest, he was surprised with himself. He hadn't made any attempt at anything since his youth, before he'd even been to this world. He hadn't even asked Sakura out on a date. He'd forgotten completely about that part of himself.

It was probably everything that had happened. The alliance was so much work and he'd been in so many fights that a time to think about things such as dating and girls hardly ever came up, and when they did, it hardly seemed appropriate to think about them. He had hardly given it much of a thought beyond a few moments when he was near—

"I have a feeling that you might," she said. "And you can't be so thick as to not know what I mean when I say that."

While Naruto didn't think of himself as thick, it still took him a few seconds to realize what she was talking about. "Yeah, but, it's not that easy…"

"You must prefer one over the other, at least to _some_ degree," Tenten said, smoothing back her hair and playing with the contents of her weapons pouch. "I mean, which one do you think is cuter?"

"It's not that easy…" Naruto said. "Really." He slumped back, frowning at her. "Besides, it's not like I can really say which one of them is cuter. They're both very cute, but in different ways."

"Which one do you like being with the most?"

He frowned at her. "That's basically the same question."

"No," Tenten said, "it isn't." She sighed. "It's no fun talking to guys about this sort of thing."

"Why am I the only one talking, anyways?" Naruto said. "What about you and Neji?"

Tenten shook her head. "There's nothing." She paused. "At least right now. I thought there'd been something before, but I guess there was nothing."

Naruto didn't have to ask before what. "You sure there's still not something?"

"I don't know," she said. "I guess I'm still under the assumption that things like that—you know, bring people _together _or something. Make people closer. I kind of needed it, in a way, after it all, but he was just…"

"Just what?" Naruto drew his legs up closer to his body, gazing keenly at her. She flushed and looked away, and when the embarrassment had passed she looked paler than usual.

"Just a dick," she said, slowly. "He hardly said anything at all and he barely even looked at me. It's why I came here instead of staying with him. I couldn't deal with it or anything like that."

She looked up to find him staring at her, his frown darker.

"What's wrong?"

"That idiot," Naruto muttered. "You'd think at least was smart enough not to do something like that."

"He's never been very smart when it comes to those sorts of things," said Tenten, laughing a little, feeling better to have someone agree with her. It seemed completely different when it wasn't somebody like Sakura or Ino, as well.

Somebody with no experience and a completely different outlook, and especially someone as honest and pure as Naruto.

"Neither was Sasuke, I don't think," Naruto said. "Must be a broody guy thing."

"Or a genius thing."

"_I _don't do that sort of stuff."

She giggled. "I don't have to say anything to that, do I?"

"Hey!"

They fell silent for a while, before Tenten spoke again. "You'll probably have to figure it out soon."

Naruto glanced at her. "Why?"

"Just a feeling," Tenten said. "They won't want to wait, at least. And the worst thing you could do is be indecisive."

Naruto muttered something, nodded, but didn't speak further. The thought of having to choose anything wasn't something he had given much thought. In fact, it was something he hadn't even given much thought period. Who _did_ he like? He didn't know himself.

So how could he choose? And no matter how he thought of it, choosing at this point in time seemed stupidly inappropriate. He wasn't even sure either of them really felt anything for him. He'd seen hints—which could easily be taken for close friendship and nothing else, especially where Sakura was concerned, but nothing definite. Other than Tenten's beliefs of course, and in Sakura's case, her observations of Kira.

But that was…strange. The thought of him and Kira was just…not bad, but weird. He'd never thought of them as anything more than friends, companions, partners…they'd built this alliance together and for him that was enough.

But she was cute, and nice, and it wasn't too hard to imagine them being together, but even that thought wasn't a typical. How would it work? It was much easier to imagine him and Sakura (he'd done it all his childhood, after all), but even as he thought about that, what about the looming legacy of Sasuke? She'd said she was over it, but was she really? She could be, but he knew enough about women to know that when they said one thing, they might be thinking something completely different.

He looked up, and saw Tenten watching him. He flushed. "Right. I'll get on that."

She nodded.

Their conversation branched from there into lighter topics, though it wasn't long before the tram came to a rough stop, the tracks squealing metallically and the lights becoming a welcome solid shine. After a moment of stretching they left the tram with some reluctance. It'd been a good conversation.

"We should have another one like that sometime," Tenten said, feeling a new sort of comradeship with the boy she had hardly ever spoken with before. It was a nice feeling.

Naruto flashed her a wide grin. "Definitely."

The hallways beneath Stormwind were as empty as always, as was the cramped stairwell leading up to the main floor. Upstairs, a pair of passing guards directed them to the Great Hall, telling them that a meeting was taking place for two shinobi who had just returned. It didn't take long for them to figure out whom.

Naruto threw the doors open and walked in, unabashedly, while Tenten followed somewhat timidly.

"Hey guys, you're—" He stopped, frowning. The room was still and silent, and he noticed that he had the entire room's attention; some stared at him with surprised delight, though it was mixed with confusion and a little worry. He couldn't think of what he'd done to warrant the last look, and assumed it was left over from the topic at hand.

"What's up?" he said, crossing his arms and looking to Jiraiya.

"Couldn't you have arrived a little earlier?" the sage groused, standing up. "Never mind. I'll brief you on everything later. We should probably get going on the plan, eh, old man?"

"I shall have everything ready on the morrow, when they arrive," Benedictus said, standing up with a series of cracks and winces, while Kylia took him by the hand. "My Word, I can see why we humans persist in seeking a solution to old age and death—not even the oldest chair in this castle creaks as I do!" He glared at Kira. "Mark my words, girl, there might be on bright side if we lose this war. Perhaps you shall never have to suffer the sting of old age, bad breath and shrunken bladders."

Kira laughed weakly at the humor. "Goodnight, master."

Benedictus nodded at all the rest, and as he passed Naruto, he grinned.

"Have fun, my boy." His smile became less a smile then, and he continued, "It is the last you might experience, in a good while…"

Confused, Naruto stared after him, calling out, "Whaddya mean, old man? What are you talking about, hey! Hey!" He whirled. "What's going on? What's up with the old man—old men?" he corrected himself, eyeing Jiraiya.

"Quite a lot," Jiraiya said, with a sigh. "I'm a bit too tired to explain it again right now, but Naruto, we've got something to talk about, so come with me." He stopped, and glanced at Kira. "I'll have him back later to talk."

Kira flushed a little, but nodded. Jiraiya walked off, grabbing Naruto by the shoulder and hauling him off, protesting the whole way.

When they were gone, Tenten looked around. She was met with a majority of similarly confused faces.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "What happened to you guys?"

Ino gave a half-hearted shrug, and then smiled.

"It's weird. I don't think I've been ordered to do something like this before, is all."

Chouji nodded, though he was grinning as well. "I wonder what kind of food they'll have?"

"Food?" Tenten said, confused. She was ignored.

"Local delicacies, maybe?" Shino retorted, with a small shrug that made his bandaged body quiver a little in pain.

"This'll be awesome!" Kiba roared, pumping a fist up. "Wait 'till we tell Kurenai, eh, Hinata?"

Hinata smiled weakly, making a small noise of affirmation.

Sakura looked at Kira. "I guess we should talk about this?"

"That would be best, I think," said Kira, with a quick nod and a nervous smile.

"Oi, oi!" Tenten said, louder now. "What's going on?"

Ino looked at her, and grinned.

"Jiraiya-sama just ordered us to be _normal_ for a few days." Her grey eyes shined like that of a hopeful child's.

"What?" Tenten said, staring wide-eyed at Ino. "What do you mean, normal? As in—"

"As in," Sakura said, "for the next two nights, we have no shinobi duties at all. We're normal teenagers." She looked at Kira. "And there's going to be a fayre."

Tenten blinked. "A what? Fayre?"

"It's called the Darkmoone Fayre," said Kira. "One of the strangest, and I'm told most fantastic, experiences you will find here. And it arrives tomorrow."

* * *

"So what's up, ero-sennin?" Naruto said, as the older man stopped, standing before a row of flowers bathed in silver and discolored by darkness. They were in the garden, alone.

"How's that training with Tenzou going?" Jiraiya rounded on the boy, his voice quick and sharp.

"Haven't done much of it lately. He hasn't been around." Why was he using the tone he only reserved for when speaking with either enemies or when he was lecturing Naruto? There was something on Jiraiya's mind that was obviously troubling him, something beyond what he'd spoken of in their last meeting.

"I mean before that."

Naruto shrugged. "Fine. Slow, but fine."

"Damn." Jiraiya turned again, and shook his head. "I was afraid of that."

"What? Why?" He walked a few steps forwards, the moon striking his face particularly hard.

"Because I suspect you'll need more than just 'fine' soon enough." Jiraiya looked at him. "Especially if what you say about Sasuke is true. I've been learning about this Lich King in the past few days. Much of it is probably just nerves, but if he—or rather, _it_—can not only live for countless years but has also created an army that spans half the world, an army that is for all intents and purposes _dead_, then I think somebody with your power might be needed very much."

"It's too dangerous," said Naruto. "I've seen what I can do with that…" he shook his head, his face closing a little. "It's impossible to control."

"Not so," said Jiraiya. "You just need to work at it."

"Nobody's controlled one of these things before, have they?"

"Aside from Shodai, no," said Jiraiya. "But nobody's ever sealed the Kyuubi no Yoko either. It was the one _bijuu_ that the Shodai controlled directly. The Fourth was the only one who possibly had the ability to seal anything like that. Furthermore, the seal—"

"Has changed," Naruto said. "Remember?"

Jiraiya nodded. "Doesn't matter. It's principles are the same, are they not? Most of what the Fourth did remains, it was just repaired and slightly augmented by this new seal."

"How do you know?" Naruto said. "I only showed it to you once."

The man flashed him a roguish grin. "I've got ways. I'll tell you some other time."

"But—"

"In any case," said Jiraiya, poking Naruto in the forehead, making the boy recoil slightly. "What's the status on your new technique?"

"Not finished," said Naruto. "Hurt's a hell of a lot, and it's gonna be responsible for a lot of shouting on Ino's part in a few minutes."

Jiraiya laughed. "Keep at it. Also, keep at that summoning as well."

"Which one? I got two now," Naruto said.

"Both," said Jiraiya. "Work at it, develop it. If you combine your _ninjutsu_ with your summoning, you'll be able to do a hell of a lot more. That's one of the reasons why we're called the _Legendary Sennin_, kid, it's because we were the first to do it so effectively."

"Yeah, but Tsunade-baba doesn't use slugs that often."

"You haven't seen her fight dirty," Jiraiya said. He blushed. "She gets…nasty when she does that. In any case, though—it's a useful technique and if you can use it more effectively, with more versatility, then you'll be able to get a lot more done without taking your normal damage. You're a good _taijutsuist_ but you leave yourself open to your healing abilities far too much."

"Is this the training you were talking about?" Naruto muttered. "'Cause it sounds just like you're criticizing the way I fight."

"I am," said Jiraiya. "Because that's training in itself. I want to start your training again, before I forget. It'll have to start soon enough, as well. Two days time, actually."

"Why two days?"

Jiraiya ignored the question, and continued. "You're right, though, what I wanted you to do is a bit different."

"So what is it?"

"Let's talk to that fox."

Even in the darkness, Naruto's face was easy to read. Jiraiya hardly even needed to look at it.

"Why?"

"I want to talk to it a bit," said Jiraiya. "And I'm pretty sure you might want to as well. I want to ask it a few things."

"About what?"

"The world."

* * *

"They must be growing nervous, do you not think?"

Thrall's eyes snapped up to meet Sasori's. They always did; he never failed to look the shinobi in the eye when addressed, not once. Sasori thought it amusing. It showed the Warchief's desperation, his desire to retain some sort of control in his rapidly shrinking world, which would soon be no bigger than his soul. There would be nothing for him to care of outside of that small space, because it would no longer be his to worry of. Sasori couldn't think of a better existence. What else could be better, than to have no cares in the world, not even the care of moving or breathing or functioning?

He would have the easiest job in the world.

He would simply have to _exist_.

"Who?"

"You know," Sasori said.

"Yes, I imagine so." Thrall conceded.

"What of your guards? Do you think some of them have abandoned you? Because you sent them away, abandoned them?"

"You would know this better than I," Thrall said. "Your 'partner' is doubtlessly aware of everything that goes on."

"Which one do you call my partner?" Sasori said, frowning.

"The one with the mask," Thrall said. "With the evil stink about him. The one that isn't there at all."

"Tobi," Sasori said, with a nod. "How did you come to the conclusion that he is my partner?"

"Because the other one cannot stand you, and is in much the same position as I," Thrall said. "Did you do the same to him as you intend to do to me?"

"I am slightly impatient," Sasori said. "As a person. So normally, I would say yes. But in this case, I'm afraid it will not be as easy as that. What I did to him is very much like what I am doing to you, but it took less time, and I must admit, I have less control. He is like a prototype, you will be the finished product. A result of the most fantastic technique ever created."

"Technique…?" Thrall said. He uttered a low, feral growl, his eyes churning with built-up rage, broiling like chemical flames. "What is it that you intend with this technique?"

Sasori stood. He moved silently, as if drifting on the invisible strings that he believed guided everything. He kept his pretty little smile in place, cocking his head inquisitively to the side.

"A number of things, some personal, some professional," said Sasori. "And here I wonder if I should break from tradition?"

Thrall scoffed. "Tradition of what?"

"Should I explain this to you?" Sasori asked. "I don't know. I shouldn't think so, but I'm tempted to. I am confronted with the dilemma every powerful person must face at some point—explaining himself to his enemies, extolling my own virtues and the details of what I intend to do. It is present in every popular story, at least these days."

He descended the dais and walked past Thrall, towards the exit. He waved his hand, and Thrall turned, tottering like a child after him. The door opened and Sasori took them into the hallway that lead to the entrance hall and the Kok'ron coven—where the shaman of Orgrimmar conducted their most private rituals, where they listened to the world's many voices, and the spirits they believed in spoke to them in silent communion.

The hallway was deserted, so was the entrance hall, and had been for some time. It was dusty and the air was musty and stale, devoid of life. No torches burned, the only smell greeting them was that of dust and warm rock and old leather. The lightly furnished entrance hall—a circular room in the center of which was a descended sitting area clad in leathers and pillows. Sasori sidestepped this, making for the hanging beads over a door to their right. Beyond it was dark, but the smell of incense still burning greeted them as they passed into the dimly lit hallway.

"I shall speak only specifically, I've decided," Sasori finally said, turning to look at Thrall, who burned with the humiliation of his weak, tottering steps. "The technique's purpose is obvious enough—to take control of you and to use you for other means. I have other such techniques that do that, but none as subtly or as amazingly as this."

Thrall waited, baring his teeth and trying to move the parts of his body that were no longer his.

"Your purpose is much greater still, and once that has been accomplished, I might turn you into one of my collection, to preserve you. That said, your purpose must have been clear to you from the first time you and I spoke." Sasori's smile was infuriating, possessing no quality save for the irritation which Thrall was throwing upon it.

"I have been ordered to destroy this alliance of which you are apart of." Sasori said. "Though it extends far beyond that."

"How far beyond?" Thrall said.

Sasori gave him a pleasant smile.

"Far enough that in time the only relations that this world will possess will be that of enemy against enemy, locked in ever-lasting, world-changing, ordered _war_."

--

It seemed no different from the last time Naruto had visited; dark and moist with dripping rot and sewage, things that he shouldn't be able to even smell, as he had no nose within his mind. Things that he had never thought his mind contained.

It stank like an old sewer, and water sloshed at his knees, feeling as real as if he were standing outside in knee-deep swamp-water. He could hear nothing but his and Jiraiya's heavy breathing, and the deep, almost musical hum coming from the path straight ahead, the path that he had never dared to follow to its brightly lit end.

Instead, he and Jiraiya turned right, down into the cramped passage that led into the Kyuubi's prison.

"This place has changed," Jiraiya said, as he observed the statues of elven gods on either side of the cage, and the crescent moon sigil emblazoned on its front, above the word "seal", so much more permanent in metal rather than paper. "I like the décor. This was done by that woman?"

"Tyrande," Naruto corrected, nodding. They slowly approached the cage, slogging through ever-deeper water, the smell of the wild overcoming the rankness of the sewer.

"How?"

"I dunno," Naruto said. "She and a few of her priestesses did it. I was in here." He glanced back at his master. "I don't really wanna stay. Let's get this over with."

Jiraiya nodded, watching as Naruto stopped just before the cage. He stared through the bars of the cage, at the darkened figure within. Chains rattled, coupled with deep breathing, rhythmic and slow from within. It was only a darkened mound, no different from towering landfill (and smelling almost as bad), but it was moved slowly, the more they watched.

"Oi," Naruto said, softly. He knew the creature could hear him. He didn't feel the need, for once, to shout.

The beast didn't answer. The living darkness did not move beyond its breathing.

"Oi," Naruto said, a little louder.

There was breath, slow and constant.

"Oi!"

More breathing. The darkness did not stir.

"OI! FUR BAG!"

Naruto was greeted with a blast of hot breath, which stank like death and blood and beasts, and a glowing red eye as big as his body, and so very close, towering over him. The world seemed somehow darker in the face of the eye, hotter, worse.

"**WHAT IS IT?"**

Its voice was ragged, unused, _different_ from how Naruto had remembered it. It seemed less cocky, less sure of itself, more suited to the chains that bound it to the floor of the chamber that wasn't there, more suited to the cage and its impenetrable bars. Through the bars Naruto couldn't see anything but its eyes, wide and red and terrible.

"We need to talk," Jiraiya said, stepping forwards.

"**YOU," **it said. "**THE TOAD HERMIT, IS IT? HOW ARE YOUR BRETHREN OF THE MOUNTAIN? I HAVEN'T EATEN THEM FOR YEARS NOW… AND HOW GOOD TO FINALLY MEET THE ONE WHO MADE THAT MAN WHO HE WAS. COME CLOSER, I MIGHT BE ABLE TO TAKE YOUR HEAD OFF."**

Jiraiya snorted. "I doubt it. That seal's pretty good. Not even a demon like yourself can get free. Amazing, no?"

"**WHAT DO YOU WANT?" **The chains began to rattle as the beast shifted itself up, so that its form took up almost the entire area of the cage, still barely a vague outline in the faded light from the torches that hung on the wall.

"To know where you come from," Jiraiya said, making Naruto turn abruptly to look at him, frowning.

"**WHY?"**

"Curiosity, among other things."

"**WHAT OTHER THINGS?"**

"Like what your purpose to Akatsuki is. And how you're linked with this place."

"**WHY WOULD I KNOW? THEY ARE HUMANS ACTING INDEPENDENT OF HISTORY. I KNOW NOTHING OF THEM." **The beast lay down again.

"What about the one who summoned you to Konoha?"

Naruto turned to Jiraiya again, his eyes wide. He wanted to speak, but whatever he might've said was drowned out by a vicious barking laughter from behind the cage.

"**THAT ONE? I KNOW NOTHING OF HIM, OTHER THAN THAT HIS CHAKRA IS PURELY DARK. ODDLY ENOUGH, HE ORIGINATES FROM ANOTHER PLACE ENTIRELY. A WEAK-MINDED FOOL, NO DOUBT, CLEARLY NOT HUMAN."**

"Which is where?" Jiraiya's breaths were quick, and through his stern façade Naruto could hear traces of interest, bordering on desperation.

"**EVERYWHERE," **it roared, laughing again.

Jiraiya sighed, deflating. "How about this world? What do you know of it?"

"**WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I KNOW OF IT?"**

"You're old," Jiraiya said. "I figured you must know. These worlds, clearly, haven't been resting beside each other for this short a time. People from our world know of this place—Akatsuki, for one thing."

"**DID IT NOT OCCUR TO YOU THAT THEY MIGHT BE FROM THIS PLACE?"**

"It has," Jiraiya said. He paced in front of the cage, not looking at the demon. It's eyes didn't follow him, and it kept them firmly on Naruto, who was puzzling out what Jiraiya was trying to ask it, what he was trying to find out. It must have been a strange sight.

"But if they came from this place," Jiraiya turned back to the demon, affixing one of its titanic eyes with a steady gaze, "What are they trying to do in our world?"

"**PERHAPS NOTHING. PERHAPS EVERYTHING."**

"What do you know about this place?"

"**IT IS A WORLD NOT ANY OLDER THAN YOURS."**

"Have you seen it before? Before Naruto brought you here, I mean?" Jiraiya's eyes were narrowed, his face cold.

"**YES."**

Jiraiya's breath hitched, and he exchanged a brief glance of surprise with Naruto. "When?"

"**I CANNOT RECALL IN HUMAN TERMS. AGES PAST."**

"How did you get to our world?"

"**I WAS BORN THERE. IT SEEMED FITTING THAT I SHOULD BE ABLE TO RETURN."**

"Born, how?"

"**SOME THINGS HUMANS ARE NOT MEANT TO KNOW." **It laughed.

Jiraiya closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. He nodded a few times.

"One more question."

"**I BORE OF THIS. ASK."**

"How are these worlds connected? Why are they connected? What purpose does it serve and why do we have to share the dangers of this world with them?" He waited for the beast to fault him when he realized that it had come out as three questions, not one.

But the Kyuubi laughed, though more softly than before; it was a low, dark chuckle, and an unseen smile spread palpably within the chamber as the demon stared at the two ant-sized humans before it.

"**THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN CONNECTED," **it said.

"**ALWAYS SHARED A PAST. THEY ARE WORLDS UNLIKE ANY OTHER, CREATED IN PARALLEL. I HATE BOTH OF THEM. SHARE THE DANGERS? YOU HAVE NO SUCH OBLIGATION. IT IS SIMPLY THE WANT OF THAT BRAT, WHO IS UNUSUALLY SENSITIVE TO THINGS SUCH AS THIS. PERHAPS HE UNDERSTANDS THAT THESE WORLDS MUST CONTINUE TO SHARE A HISTORY. THEY ALWAYS HAVE.**"

Jiraiya nodded. "Right," he said, drawing it out. He glanced at Naruto as he did, and the boy met his stare with bafflement.

"Thanks, furball."

"**WHEN YOU DIE, I WILL PISS ON YOUR ASHES, AND IF I CANNOT, I WILL STILL LAUGH."**

"I have no doubt of that," Jiraiya turned and they were soon gone from the chamber, and the chamber was soon gone as well, returning to the darkest corners of Naruto's mind, hazy and indistinct until Naruto returned his mind to it again.

The air of the garden was much cooler when they came to. Naruto was sweaty, the humidity of the not-chamber still getting to him, even if it hadn't been real. Jiraiya sniffed himself and wiped some sweat from his forehead. Both of them were glad to be back in the cool air, to hear the pleasant rustle of the garden and the distant sounds of the town.

It took a few moments to recover before Naruto spoke.

"Why'd we do that again? How did you know that that thing would be able to…?" He'd thought of asking the creature something like that for a while. It seemed to know quite a lot about this place, and he recalled a few things it had once said, hints as to how this world worked.

Jiraiya snorted and spat a logy into a patch of flowers beside him.

"I've been thinking about a few things for a while," he said. "Since Yamato and Sai have returned, especially. Things about this world. I just wanted to confirm some of them," Jiraiya said, watching the moon as he wiped some sweat from his brow. "It was a bit of an unplanned thing to do that just then, but I'd been wanting to talk to the beast for some time."

"How'd you know it had been here before?"

"I didn't," Jiraiya said, frowning. "I felt that Akatsuki's presence here wasn't an accident, like yours had been. I felt that there must have been some other reason for why they were here, and what purpose they had here, and I knew that the _bijuu_ might have something to do with it. I'd like to start researching a bit about this place—history and the like. I'm sure I could find something about the _bijuu_ here. Not in name, but at least in description, behavior. They've all been here, at some point, I think."

Naruto watched him carefully. "Does that help with anything?"

"It does," Jiraiya said. "I'm beginning to understand why Akatsuki is taking such an interest in this place. A permanent interest."

"And why is it?"

"Because it's as the furball said." Jiraiya's stare was piercing.

"These worlds are the same. And if they want one world, then they'll almost certainly want them all."

He got up, dusting himself off, waiting for Naruto to do the same. They began to walk back towards the castle entrance, as Naruto turned to him.

"What were you guys talking about before I came in?"

Jiraiya grinned lazily. "A bit of an unplanned excursion tomorrow. Something to give you guys a bit of a break. As it stands, I hardly think two days will matter, and you might need them after this."

"Two days of what? What're you talking about?"

"Fun, brat," he said, laughing. "You have to get ready for two days of _fun_."

--

A city lay sprawled before him.

Towers of gold, iron, steel and even violet rose sky-high around him, of all sizes and shapes—no general form, no order, nothing. Below them lay endless streets, nearly empty, and far more apparent—the zigzagging canals that carved across the city like the mindless doodles of an infant.

Like the towers, there was no order to their layout; they seemed to have no specific purpose. No boats floated upon them, no houses had been built at their sides. At points the water was smooth and brilliant as if made of delicate glass; but elsewhere it rushed as if in eternal flood, murky, dark, and dangerous to look upon, threatening at points to even overflow into the contrasting orderly and straight streets.

Where the canals led it was impossible to tell, for they were maze-like, unending. It was easy to tell where they began, however—at the center, beneath the tallest tower. They flowed below it out of obscurity, from the dozens of pipes and drains that lay at its foot like the roots of a massive tree, but that spread up its entire length like vines, giving the great tower no uniformity, as chaotic as the rest of the city.

The tower itself seemed to be no more than a mesh of these pipes, of all different colors—gold and silver and darkened iron, some even tinged violet like the evening sky or deep green like the foliage of the murkiest of swamps. There was too much happening within, nothing agreed, there was nothing uniform about the entire tower.

The tower didn't seem whole or complete. It appeared broken, disheveled, orderless.

Once, it had been called the Violet Citadel. Or perhaps, the Salamander's Lair, or the Terrace of Light. Now they called it The Seat—an abbreviation for its full name, which few mentioned, because to speak of it was blasphemy…

The Seat of God.

He might've laughed, had he been any other man. But he saw no humor in it. It might've been slightly amusing, but then again, he expected nothing else. Only the unexpected was amusing, nowadays. But he rarely found anything amusing anyways. Humor meant that there was something joyful in the world. He had seen so much evidence to the contrary that he saw no point in laughing any longer. There was little point hoping for something that would never come to him.

There was no point in pretending. He did far too much of that anyways.

The Voice called from behind.

"They have returned."

He turned, the shaggy red locks moving like a field of autumn wheat touched by wind. His eyes, electric blue, gleaming aquamarine and a lifeless grey at all once, made of concentric circles that spiraled into nothingness—or perhaps infinity—alighted upon the woman walking towards him. She was graceful, expressionless, and with the beauty mark above her lips and the heavy make-up over her eyes she looked more like a high-class courtesan than his partner, a shinobi.

"I see," he said, standing up. "So?"

"Kakuzu is angry. He believes that they were seen before they disappeared. He has slain several of his men, before returning to his _lair_."

"By whom?"

"His guess is Konoha ninja."

"Just a guess?"

The woman shrugged, and said nothing.

"What do the earnings amount to?" he asked, after a moment's silence, in which the sky rumbled with thunder as clouds began to roll over the endless stretch of the chaotic city.

"Over 800,000g, if our bartering with the goblins of the Undermine is done well enough, and the black shops in our world accept the weapons we have collected."

"Good," he said, with a quiet nod. He walked towards her, staring into her eyes, but they wouldn't meet his. He walked past, towards the arched doorway.

"Is something wrong, Konan?" he asked, before disappearing through the doorway. He didn't turn around, just stopped.

"I do not like this place," she said. "It stinks too much of blood."

"I suppose it does," he said. "So why do you not follow?"

"I don't like the smell, but," she said, turning. "The memories are not unpleasant. This was the beginning, wasn't it?"

"Of course not," he said. "It was far earlier."

"When you left, Pein?"

He nodded. "If it was Konoha ninja, then they will discover Dalaran's involvement soon enough."

"It doesn't matter, does it?"

He shook his head, very slowly.

"Of course not. There's nothing in this world that matters much, anymore."

An angry wind blew past, ruffling his cloak and hair. She seemed untouched, immaculate. Her eyes went past him, into the doorway.

"_They_ are angry today."

"It is not understandable," he said. "I am sure They can hear us."

"I am distressed…there is so much that can go wrong. It never leaves me that at any moment—"

"I wouldn't worry about it," he said. "I won't let anything happen. Our reach is always extended by our desires and wants. That's why I decided to do this in the first place, isn't it?"

"I still cannot believe it."

"There is no point in belief," he said. "Just watch, and you'll _see_."

He was gone before she could respond. Konan's eyes turned to gaze across the city, which was now obscured by a veil of heavy rain and rolling fog. The sky was dark and shook with thunder, and the rain-drenched city had never seemed so beautiful.

--

A strange chapter, I agree, but I quite like it. I've taken a few criticisms to heart and tried to shorten the paragraphs for you guys—I was rightly told that it's fairly pointless to put in large ones since most of you won't take the time to read all of them anyways. This makes things go a bit faster as well. I'll make sure the quality stays the same, though :)

Next chapter—The Darkmoone Faire with a healthy twist…and since you asked for it…more romance abounds…

See you soon!

General Grievous

**Weapons Pouch:**

_The Unnamed Blade of Ragnaros: _Given to Naruto by the dwarves of Ironforge, while not as indestructible as his previous, the blade has far more power contained within it. It's true powers have yet to be revealed…

_The Unnamed Gauntlets of Ragnaros: _There owner has yet to be determined, but they might possess as much power as the blade.

_The Bangles of Ragnaros: _Simple armlets, but which provide protection and power to those who where them.

_The Seals of Ragnaros: _Rings whose properties have still yet to be identified, but whose promise appears to be limitless.

**Bingo Book:**

_Konan (Humanoid)(Boss)(S-Class Nukenin): _The only female member of Akatsuki, though she appears to be the healer of the group, as evidenced by her attending Deidara after his defeat at Naruto's hands in an earlier chapter.

_Pein (Humanoid)(Boss)(?-Class Nukenin?): _Okashira (leader) of Akatsuki. Present in Dalaran, at the top of the Seat. His place there remains unknown.


	36. The Darkmoone Fayre: Petals

Disclaimer: This will be repeated above here, and I will not delete it this time, just to shake things up a bit

_Disclaimer: This will be repeated above here, and I will not delete it this time, just to shake things up a bit. I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft._

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

While Jiraiya's foray into revealing at least a portion of the Kyuubi's origins had been shocking, it was nothing compared to what came next.

Have fun? He was being _ordered_ to have fun?

Barring the fact that it seemed completely besides the point to be ordered to have fun, Naruto couldn't imagine why they were being asked to take a break from the duties they'd been given not only for the rest of their lives, but during such an important time as well. The largest and most bitter war in the history of any shinobi village towered before them, a war that not only spanned the gap between two worlds, but the entirety of those two worlds; a war that threatened to tear it all apart and scatter it to the four winds like a raging tornado would a poor old shack.

And they were expected to have _fun_? Now?

Not that Naruto wouldn't—he was all for fun. He just couldn't imagine it being forced on him.

"What is this, like a D-Rank mission?" he complained before Jiraiya left.

"No," Jiraiya said. "S-Rank. Very serious."

"That's against the whole purpose of fun!"

"I'm sure you'll manage." With everything serious that Jiraiya had said in the past few minutes, it seemed odd when his familiar lecherous smile returned. "Besides, you've got two girls in there itching to take you to the fayre."

"I've what—"

"Better set your mind to that for a moment," Jiraiya said. "In two days I'll be back to start your training again."

"But what—" he couldn't manage any more. Jiraiya was off, bounding into the cooling black night, soon gone, leaving only stark silence. Seeing as how his smile hadn't disappeared, Naruto had an idea of where he was off to.

He encountered nobody on his way back to the great hall, which was surprising as it was completely empty—save for, as Jiraiya had told him, two girls.

Sakura and Kira both looked rather surprised with each other, as if neither could figure out why the other had remained behind, when in fact it was quite clear to both of them. When Naruto entered the room, both girls looked at each other nervously, and then moved towards Naruto as he approached.

"So what's this about the Darkmoone Fayre?" Naruto asked, before either could say anything. "Who came up with this?"

"Benedictus," Kira said. "He'd been planning it for a while, especially since the war is probably going to put a damper on some of the more popular holidays around here—Brewfest, Hallow's End, The Harvest Feast…" she gave a little shrug. "I do not see anything wrong with it, though. I suppose we might need it."

"Yeah," said Naruto, nodding firmly. "But…I dunno," he shrugged as well. "It's hard to imagine trying to have fun right now."

"I suppose," Sakura said, wringing her hands together behind her back, and like Kira, avoiding looking directly at Naruto. He glanced between the girls, feeling a lump form in his throat and for once he felt bereft of anything to say. He suddenly wished he hadn't said anything about it to Tenten, because now he couldn't stop thinking about what they'd talked about…

You'll need to choose one of them eventually…

How come it happens like this, he thought. Why couldn't I have at least a couple of days to sort it out? Do I have to choose now?

"So…" he said.

Neither girl answered. They just looked at him, almost expectantly.

"Uhm," he said. "What're you guys doing for the fayre?"

The girls exchanged glances. "Not sure," said Sakura.

"I want to see what's different about it, at this point…" Kira said, shuffling her feet.

"Ah," Naruto said, nodding a little. "That's good." Why'd he say that? What was good?

Sakura cleared her throat. "Who are you going with?" The words came out, but nobody there really understood them. They came as a shock, even to their speaker, and it took a few seconds for everyone to realize what had been asked.

"Eh?"

"Going with," Sakura said again, her face a little flushed, still looking as if she was trying to understand her words herself. "To the fayre…"

"Uhm…" Naruto said, opening his mouth, and then closing it, his mind going blank. "You guys…?"

The two girls exchanged glances, clearly unhappy with his answer, but they didn't say anything towards it. They seemed unsure of what to say, unsure that if they did say something it wouldn't offend or betray the other, who probably felt the same way about the situation. There was too much of an awkward silence to get much conversation going again, so they all stood there, in dark silence, waiting for an idea to present itself.

The wind whistled a monotonous tune. In the city, carts clattered and there were distant shouts of workers and shopkeepers calling for an end of the night's activities, the last ware's to be sold. Somewhere far away there was soft chanting, likely from the outskirts where the trolls, orcs and tauren lived. Naruto focused his attention on all of that, so when Kira finally spoke it came as a shock and he almost missed what she said.

"How about we split up the night, you know, I go with you for half of the fayre and Sakura goes with you the other half? Does that sound, uhm, fair?" She stuttered as she said it—why the hell did he feel so nervous? Was it because they were? Was it just because of what Tenten had said to him?

He stumbled over his own words. "Uh, sure, let's…uh, do that."

Sakura nodded in agreement, not wanting to speak and show her own inability to form coherent sentences.

"G-great," said Kira, nodding firmly. "Then we should get to bed. Sleep." She corrected, flushing at the previous implications that nobody else would've understood in the situation.

"Right," said Sakura. "Good night, Naruto," she strode past him, a little too quickly, and Kira followed. Naruto was soon alone, and for once, he was very much glad for it.

* * *

Before they went to bed, Kira and Sakura stood in the darkened hallway on the second floor, not looking at each other, but not moving to their separate rooms. They seemed to be waiting for words to come to them; they both knew what they wanted to say, but finding the correct words to say it was something else.

Clearing her throat again, Sakura looked up, and met Kira's violet eyes, which were hard to see in the gloom of the night. But they were different from when she had last met them. Hard, determined, like her own—or how she wanted hers to be in that moment, and she hoped she was pulling off.

"I guess," Sakura said, "we'll have to push back agreement a little bit further, right?"

Kira nodded. "It would seem so."

"I'm not used to be civil about this sort of thing," Sakura said, shifting a little. "But I want to be. I don't want it to end up like last time, with Ino."

"I do not want that either."

"Then," Sakura nodded, both to Kira and herself, as she turned towards her door. "I hope it goes well. Good luck."

"You too, Sakura." Kira flashed a half-smile, and went to her own room. With each stride they took away from each other, their confidence grew. They had two days of fun, and they knew exactly how they were going to spend it. They would not lose.

Perhaps, Sakura thought as she went to bed, it was better to have a rival in this sort of thing. Sakura did well with competitions, and if it got over this strange nervousness that she was beginning to feel around Naruto, a nervousness that she'd never felt before and was finding increasingly difficult to ignore, and pretend was not there, then she was all for it.

It was the first proper date she'd ever been on. And she would do it right.

And with Naruto, no less. It was a strange feeling, but a good one, and when she finally fell asleep she dreamt of all the things that could happen, and they were all good. She was getting more comfortable with these feelings, little by little. For once, Sasuke did not even enter her thoughts.

Not even once.

--

The next day was crisp and fresh, with a light fog draping across the city in the morning and clearing by noon. The rays of the sun flushed the city with a lighthearted tone, for news was quickly spreading of the fayre that had arrived, without herald or expectation, on the outskirts of Stormwind City. A mile away from the walls, in an expansive field within the Elwynn Forest east of the castle, the banners and peaked tents of the Darkmoone Fayre could be seen.

Goblin and gnome curriers entered the city and heralded its coming, promising never before seen excitements: a grand feast that would last the night; a house of horrors that would show the world the most awful, creepy-crawly beasties and beings to exist and the stories behind them; a drinking contest for only the most veteran ale-drinkers; a performance by the legendary band, Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain; and amusements greater and lesser that those who had seen the fayre before would know and love. Soon, the city was bubbling with excitement, and in that the dreary atmosphere was lost.

"They want to take a break," Benedictus said to Kira, as they watched a group of chattering housewives leave the Cathedral to get themselves ready for the fayre. "So much hate is taxing on everyone. To be able to forget it is a wonderful thing for all of them."

"So this wasn't just for us?" Kira said. Her heart beat each second with greater and greater joy, so much so that she couldn't keep her smile from growing ever wider. It was like nothing was wrong, like the world was at peace. She couldn't believe it.

"Of course not," Benedictus said, grinning tiredly, like an old man. "It was for everyone. To show them a little bit of happiness before the darkness comes."

Kira nodded. She didn't linger at the cathedral much longer, and took her time walking back to the castle, both to savor the temporary festive joy and to think a little longer on what she was going to about that evening.

She still didn't even know what she was going to wear!

She was nervous and excited, and confused, and a million other little emotions bothered her constantly too, never letting her forget the wrongs that could be done, the horrors of what could happen on a date gone wrong and the repercussions afterwards. What would they do? How long would she spend with him? Would she be first or would Sakura? What would happen? Would it go well or wrong? How would it go well? How could it fail? Was Naruto—

She stopped and fixed her attention on a group of shopkeepers loading food into wagons, which were driven by goblins in the festive garb of the Darkmoone Fayre—black and purple doublets with green feathered hats and pointed shoes, as if they were the elves of Winter Veil on holiday. There was no point in wondering how it might go. They would do it, and it would be fun. And maybe something else would happen. Who knows?

But a young girl's heart was never so easily settled. She told herself that, but it never worked. There was always that general sense of the embarrassment of something going wrong, no matter what.

A few times she had to marvel at the thoughts she was having. For some reason, the outside world seemed…less important. No, that wasn't right, it was equally important but she'd never really thought about things like this. She'd never conceived thoughts that normal girls her age would. It was…strange.

She shook herself again as she neared the castle. She wouldn't get another chance like this. Not for a while, if ever. Why not make the best of it?

It was the same thought Sakura was having at that moment, a dozen yards away in the confines of her room, though not being the queen of her own country made it easier to reconcile. It wasn't that she hadn't thought about things like this before, it was just she was still having trouble adjusting to the fact that she was not only directing all of her energy into it for the moment, but it was going towards somebody she hadn't expected.

Naruto.

It took her the better part of the afternoon to make her feelings clear to herself. She liked him. Both as a friend, and potentially more. She couldn't explain it—what had changed? Why did she like Naruto in a way different from before? And why did it feel so different from how she had felt for Sasuke?

Ino was helpful, in a way. Sakura had barged in on the girl when trying on some of the outfits that she'd purchased earlier that day to see which would be "most alluring". Sakura wasn't sure who Ino was trying to impress, but she had a sneaking suspicion that it was different from what Sakura would expect. But the two had gotten to talking, and Sakura hadn't been able to stop herself from voicing her concerns.

"Maybe because you didn't like Sasuke as much as you thought you did," Ino said, wincing as Sakura tugged out a knot in her hair. "Ow! You'd better not rip any out, forehead-girl."

"Quiet," Sakura said. "And what do you mean by that?"

"I mean, let's face it, it was a childish crush conceived when you were like, ten. Ten-year-olds have no idea what love feels like. You liked him because he was good-looking, not because he was kind or anything like that."

"Is that why you liked him?"

"That's why everyone liked him," Ino muttered, not wanting to be reminded of the fact that she had once crushed on a psycho-traitor like Sasuke. She'd gotten over it quite quickly after that had become clear. "The point is you grew out of it."

"But I still like Sasuke…" Sakura didn't sound sure of herself. She didn't _feel_ sure of herself.

"I doubt it. Not like you think at least. You do like him, I guess, but it's probably more in a friend/brother way, like Naruto. I can do a test if you like." Ino grinned at her.

"Alright."

"Imagine yourself in a bed. Sasuke's right next to you, naked—"

"What!"

"Shocking? Exciting?" Ino said, with a grin. She didn't need an answer—the look on Sakura's face said it all. "That proves it."

"Proves what?"

"That you don't like him, romantically, at least."

"That doesn't prove anything," Sakura mumbled.

"Okay, now picture Naruto in the same situation…"

Unbidden, the image came to mind too fast for Sakura's liking. She nearly choked, despite not having anything in her mouth except drool.

"You're too easy, forehead-girl…" Ino said, laughing at the blush on Sakura's face. "That does prove it—"

"That doesn't prove anything," Sakura said. "Just that my taste in men is different from how I thought it'd be. Besides, I never even really thought of Sasuke in that way either…"

Ino shrugged, and then sighed. "I suppose he's sort of the 'untouchable prince' character you here about in _manga_ and stuff, right? He's not the sort of physical person that Naruto is. He's good looking, but sort of like a flower, I suppose…"

"I think that's a blatantly wrong comparison, Ino-pig," Sakura said. Sasuke as a flower did not suit her image of him.

"Whatever. But the sooner you realize you like Naruto—maybe even love him—the better."

"It's happening way too fast," Sakura mumbled. "I just even had a discussion with Kira about this. I didn't even know how to answer it."

"I think you do, you're just shy about it. You always were, about that sort of thing. I mean, for all you fawned over Sasuke, you never actually confessed to him, did you?" Ino eased herself up, walking over to the mirror to look at the job Sakura had done. She nodded a few times, impressed. "Nice job, forehead-girl. I didn't expect you to be good at brushing hair."

"Shut up, Ino-pig," Sakura said, half-heartedly. But she was right. She'd never confessed to Sasuke—she'd just assumed he got the idea. The thought of confessing was too nerve-wracking. Even though it was probably the best way.

"It is the best way," Ino agreed, doing her hair up as she turned to look at Sakura. "It makes things easy, and clear. It's hard to mess up a confession."

"So you're saying you want me to confess?" Sakura said, her stomach doing acrobatics without a safety-line.

"I don't really want anything," Ino said. "Besides, you should probably worry about making your feelings clear to yourself before you think about confessing. I've done my best, you just need to sort it out for yourself. Better hurry, though. Kira-sama seems quite sure of her feelings."

"Right," she said. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, as Ino got out the three outfits she had bought—each varying shades of purple or blue, cut to look as racy as possible.

Sakura glanced at the outfits. "Who are you going with? Chouji?"

Ino blinked, whirling to face her. "Why would you think that?"

"Because Shikamaru isn't here, and I can't imagine you going by yourself, with Kiba, Shino or Neji."

"What if I'm going with a group?"

"If you are, then that means that by group you mean yourself, Chouji and Shino, 'cause I'm pretty sure that Neji and Kiba are going to be with others tonight."

Ino glanced away. "So what if I'm going with Chouji?"

"I agree, so what?"

There was a tense silence. Ino played with a forelock of hair. Sakura rolled her eyes, looking out the window. "Guess I better see which outfit I'm wearing. See you later, Ino."

"It's a friends-thing," Ino said. "Just a friends-thing."

"Okay."

"Really."

"Are you trying to convince me or you?"

Ino didn't answer, as Sakura left.

* * *

The town was alive that night more than it had been since the war began. Lights lit pathways through the streets like a distant maze that was visible from the castle. Sounds filled the streets, that of people happily making there way across it to the eastern gate, outside of which a path of torches that flickered dark and eerie colors in constant flux had been laid out, lighting the way to the fayregrounds. A strange music played, a kind of distant, haunting calliope that never seemed to be coming from any specific source; it came from everything, but it did nothing to stop the influx of chattering customers, and only added to the mysterious, mystical atmosphere.

The plan for the shinobi was to meet at the gates and then go in together, before breaking off and doing whatever the individual groups wanted. Being men, Kiba, Shino, Chouji and Naruto all arrived first, with Neji dismally trudging in a few minutes later, making it plainly obvious that he didn't want to be there, having made little effort on his outfit. The other guys hadn't made much effort, either—they wore t-shirts and pants, nothing fancy.

Except Shino, who was hooded as always.

"It was probably a bad idea to come so early," Kiba muttered, sighing as he leaned against the white brick of the city walls. "They're going to be forever."

"Pretty much," Chouji said. He kept glancing towards the fayre, his sensitive nose already honing in on the most delicious smells. He also kept looking down the road, hoping that Ino would arrive any minute.

"Who are you going with?" Shino asked, glancing at Naruto.

"Eh?" Naruto said, shaking himself from his nervous thoughts. "Oh, Sakura-chan and Kira-chan."

"Both?" Kiba groused. His eye twitched jealously. "You serious?"

"Yeah. We're going to break up the night."

"You…" Shino said. "…are a hog, Naruto."

"What? Hog? Why?"

"Shino, you've got nobody to go with?"

Shino might've been glaring at Chouji, but it was hard to tell through his glasses and the many layers he wore. He said nothing in response, and simply looked off in a random direction. The other boys fell silent, not sure if they should continue the conversation.

"Don't hold back your gossip on my account," Shino said, a barely detectable layer of annoyance coating his words.

"Erm, I'm going with Hinata," Kiba said. He glanced up and away from everyone else. "Should be fun!"

"Where's Akamaru?" Naruto asked.

"Back at the castle. I, erm, didn't want him to come. I'll get him something good later."

Naruto nodded.

"I'm going with Ino," said Chouji.

Naruto blinked in surprise. "She agreed to go with you?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm just a fill-in for Shikamaru, but it doesn't bother me," Chouji said, smiling in a way that said it did bother him but he was too nice to mention that.

"Ah." Naruto looked at Neji. "You going with Tenten?"

"No," Neji said.

"Figured as much," Naruto said.

Neji turned to face Naruto, his eyes narrowing. "Why's that?"

"No reason."

Before Neji could say anything else, a call drew their attention down the road. Half-hidden by the crowd, the five girls approached them as a line of dancers clothed in the most beautiful garments would to wow the most difficult crowd of the evening.

Hinata was dressed in a simple kimono, which apparently she kept a set of in some scroll or another at all times. It was white with pretty black and silver flowers adorning the bottom, rising in a steady vine-like wrapping up around her. She had tied her hair back, and was twiddling her thumbs nervously as she walked in the graceful, shuffling manner a kimono restricted one to.

Beside her, Tenten had chosen a Mainland dress (which, like Hinata, she kept on her person at all times) that came down just above her knees, showing so much of her smooth, long-legs and hugging her upper frame so tightly that if you took the time to notice, Neji's porcelain skin had taken on the color of spring cherry blossoms, and a thin line of drool had begun making its way down his chin.

In the middle was Ino, her hair tied up, some of it sexily thrown across her face, obscuring half of it and leaving what lay beneath to the young men's colorful imaginations. She wore a purple Mainland dress that she had borrowed from Tenten that was even shorter, and Chouji felt a little ashamed for suddenly just wanting to get some dinner and be done with the night, and then had a sudden urge to lift something big and heavy; a feeling he'd never had before, especially in front of a practical woman like Ino.

Finally, on the end of the line, Sakura and Kira walked side-by-side, looking more confident than either of them felt. Sakura had dressed in a red, long-sleeved top with a short, like-colored skirt that cut off about mid-thigh. Black and green flowers coiled around her torso and danced about her thighs, as if hoping to get a closer look at her perfectly smooth, white legs. Kira was dressed in white and royal blue: a long, sleeveless dress that came down past her knees but had obviously been modified to fit the occasion—it was far more open in the chest than any dress Naruto had seen previously on her, and it showed off her healthy, growing bust in a way that triggered a thought in

Naruto's mind—

She's definitely grown…

Both girls had their hair tied back, and adorned with white and red flowers, and were smiling a little nervously.

"Yeah," Ino said, as they walked towards the boys. "That's the reaction I was hoping for."

The other girls giggled. It was an amusing sight—five boys standing like scarecrows grinning in a field, their eyes glazed in blissful recognition of the beauty before them, their heads swimming with fantasies both benign and slightly perverted.

Everyone felt the full-force of Shino's glare as the girls neared. Neji was suddenly wondering why he hadn't chosen to go with Tenten. Maybe he could rectify that right now…

"Hey boys," Ino said, throwing a smile, particularly at Chouji. "Ready to party?"

"Yemgh," Naruto said. He swallowed the drool in his mouth. "I mean, yes."

--

The Darkmoon Fayre was radically different from the last time Naruto had seen it; it was larger, for one thing—now sporting not one tent, but three, all with the patterned black, green and purple pinwheel stripes down the side. All around Naruto saw things he had seen before, only different—the collection of cages for the "petting zoo", the arena for the toy car deathmatch, the many trinket stalls—but they were set against things he hadn't seen before.

A startling number of people were trying to get into the smallest tent, by the entrance—the two-person thick line wound around the tent and into obscurity somewhere behind it. Naruto couldn't read the sign, but the picture next to it was a freakish, misshapen being glaring furiously at the approaching crowd. Kira said it was a "freak show", where some of the more colorful denizens of the world would be on display. Sort of the counter to the "petting zoo", which had apparently grown since Naruto's previous visit.

"And they have a drinking contest," she pointed to the other small tent, "a feast afterwards, and in the big tent there's going to be a band, but I suppose we'll have to check all of it out."

"Then let's get started!" Kiba cheered. "Let's go, Hinata!" she grabbed the girl by the arm and was off, leaving Hinata to look forlornly back at Naruto, though he didn't notice.

"Want to get some dinner, Ino?" Chouji asked, shifting, hoping what he said wasn't as stupid or ignorant as it sounded to his ears.

"Sure," she said, smiling sensuously, allowing the boy to lead her off into the throng.

Neji opened his mouth to speak to Tenten. Shino got there first.

"Would you like to look around, Tenten-san?"

With a quiet glance at Neji, she said, "Sure. Want to come with us, Neji-kun?"

About to refuse, Neji suddenly thought better. "Yes. That will be fine." His voice was strained. They left quickly as well.

Naruto winced, watching them all. "That's gotta be harsh…"

Sakura nodded. Her eyes snaked to Kira. "So…"

"Naruto," Kira said. "Who do you wish to take with you first?"

Naruto froze. He glanced at the two of them. "Do I have to choose?" To avoid the approaching argument, he immediately said, "If I choose one of you, the other's going to have to spend time by themselves…and that's gonna suck…"

"It'll be fine," said Sakura, shaking her head. "I'd prefer some alone time as well, and there's plenty to do. We'll probably even see people we know around here…"

"I agree," said Kira. "It would be very much better if…" she shrugged. "…that was the case. So who do you choose first?"

Naruto swallowed. He honestly didn't know who to choose. They were both not only his friends, but too beautiful for words. Any time he spent with either of them would be a good time. Also, there was going to be something about how he chose them. He knew girls interpreted everything as having meaning. They would definitely interpret—how, he didn't know—the reason why he chose one over the other first.

After a minute of appearing to think, and not meeting their eyes, he finally said. "Sakura-chan. Wanna go with me?"

Sakura visibly brightened. The tension drained away. "Okay!"

He looked at Kira. "When do you want to meet up?"

"We have all night," Kira said. "Perhaps…in five hours, or so? Here?" They all looked around, memorizing the spot.

"Sure."

Kira bowed to both of them, as if she weren't a queen but a servant. "Very well. Have a good time, and I'll see you then."

"Right," Naruto said.

"Have a good time yourself," Sakura said.

They shared a smile. "I will."

Kira glided into the crowd, still visible despite the fog of people coming to obscure her. Sakura drew his attention away from her, soon enough, though.

"Where do you want to go?" she said, giving him a wonderful smile. He flushed, still unable to believe his luck. He was on a date with Sakura-chan. A real date, one that he'd dreamed about for so long…a real date! He shook himself and grinned at her.

"How about we just look around 'till we find something we like?"

She nodded. "Sounds good. Lead the way." She grabbed his arm, another shocker, and they were off.

The hundreds of people that filled the pathways between tents and stalls did not fit with the fayre's mysterious, creepy image. There were too many people enjoying it, having fun, not enough silences, creepy fog, strange people. The dark colors clashed with the bright dresses of the people, with the laughter and joy.

But workers at the fayre seemed content, enjoying this popularity far more. As Naruto and Sakura walked the lines, gazing at the contents of shops—which sold everything from food to clothing and small bits and bobs—their purveyors bellowed special prices and deals for certain objects, brandishing them high. Ones running the game stalls called for people to try their skill at everything from target hitting to fish-catching.

The smells were everywhere. So many that Naruto couldn't believe it. Tsuwabuki, from wherever she was in the forest or the town, would doubtlessly be able to smell this place.

"Smells wonderful, like the Konoha Festival," Sakura said, nodding.

"But weirder."

They passed by the toy tank enclosure, just as a goblin began to cheer at his victory over a couple who were too busy laughing to notice they had lost.

"Yes," she said, "much weirder. Can we try that?"

Naruto grinned. "I'm good at it."

"Oh? Have you tried it before?"

"A lot!"

"Then let's unseat the smug guy as champion." She saluted him. "Shall we, commander?"

"Let's do it!" Naruto bellowed, abandoning the role-play before he had even begun it.

--

"This is delicious," Ino gushed, piling more of the strange looking fruit onto her plate, devouring it as greedily as Chouji had ever devoured beef kebabs at the Konoha steakhouse.

"I know," Chouji said.

"I didn't know they even _made_ food like this!" She wiped her chin prettily with a napkin before returning to her meal.

"Try some of this," Chouji said, placing a piece of meat he hadn't identified on her plate. She frowned at it for a second, and then nodded and nibbled a piece of it off. Her eyes lit up.

"I know, right?" Chouji said, grinning. "I think it's the sauce that makes it the best."

"So true…" Ino said. "It's a little like the steak in Konoha, only tougher by a little, and really, really delicious."

"I didn't think you liked meat that much," he said.

"I don't much," she said, shrugging. "Too fattening, and too chewy. Ruins my teeth and sometimes makes me feel like I've done something wrong after I eat it. But this is really good, and I do think it's the sauce."

"I'd want to be eaten if I were covered in that sauce," Chouji said.

Ino laughed.

Chouji was enjoying food. But he hadn't expected to be enjoying Ino's company as much as we was. He thought she'd talk about Shikamaru all the time. Or Asuma-sensei and Kurenai, or anything to make it seem more natural between them.

Because if she felt anything like he did, it was awkward. He'd treated the idea of this date from the very beginning as something of a joke. Just something to keep them both entertained so that nothing else had to happen and they could have a good time in the days the had off.

But since he'd seen her—seen how much effort she'd put into appearing beautiful, just for a joke date, and how much fun she seemed to be having and how natural it seemed, he'd changed his opinion. It no longer seemed like a joke to him or her. It seemed real. It made him feel…springy, light as air, and hungrier with each passing moment.

"Where d'ya wanna go after this?" Chouji asked, through a mouthful of meat.

Ino shrugged. "I'd like to check out that "petting zoo" we saw earlier."

"Didn't look like one." Chouji said, recalling the large cages.

"Could be fun, though," she said, with one of her sexy, sly smiles.

He flushed, and nodded.

"Then let's go!"

--

"It's gotten harder, I'm telling you," Naruto said. "That's how I met Matthias. I beat him. It was really hard this time, though."

Sakura shrugged. "Maybe if you'd listened to my instructions…" she grinned.

"I was doing fine, I just made a mistake!"

"Right," Sakura said, with a shrug. She took a step to the side, peering around the frightfully large man they stood behind, who was planting sloppy kisses on the much smaller, younger-looking girl by his side. She stepped back in line, looking both faintly disgusted and slightly annoyed.

"Still some time to go," she said. "This better be good…"

"I bet it will be, it's probably got a lot of weird things. We haven't seen the petting zoo yet, that's really cool, by the way!" Naruto said, grinning. "But you're having fun so far, right?"

"Of course," Sakura said, nodding. "More than I've had in ages. I can't believe they actually gave us a day off. Let alone two."

"Yeah," Naruto said, shifting a little nervously in his spot.

It was going well. He wouldn't have expected it, but there hadn't yet been an awkward, Sasuke-filled silence or anything like that. It was like Sakura was deliberately trying to forget about that, and just have fun. Well, he should as well.

But damned if Tenten's words didn't occupy that spot, a constant loop in his thoughts, replaying whenever he wasn't speaking with Sakura or checking to see where they were in line. So what if he had to decide? Why did he have to decide right now? What did it matter?

And how the hell could he choose, anyways, when they had both looked like _that_! Every time he looked at Sakura he couldn't believe it was real. Here she was, on a date with him—and she was acting like she liked him, acting as if they weren't just teammates. As if her crush on Sasuke hadn't even existed. She'd said she was over him, hadn't she? Did that mean…? And if it did…then how the hell could he choose? It was _unfair!_

"I was just thinking," Naruto said, suddenly.

"What?"

"You've changed a lot, Sakura-chan."

She blinked. "Have I? How?"

"Well," he said, shrugging. "You haven't tried to hit me tonight, for one thing…"

She blushed. "Those are jokes, you know, Naruto? Just jokes, I never mean to—"

"I know," he said. "But I mean, I didn't think something like this would ever happen, just me and you on a date like this. It's weird."

"Good weird?"

"Yeah," he said, grinning.

"Good," she said, and steered the conversation elsewhere.

--

Kiba pointed to the enclosure, a rectangular pen roped off in a bare stretch of the field, where there was no grass, only rock and dirt. At one end was a line of tubs, where people were happily dunking their heads in, laughing as they either emerged with an apple clenched between their jaws or just drenched in ice-cold water.

Next to this was a small table, where children were busily making small pouches of flowers and herbs, which they then hurried to a fire made in the middle, and tossed the pouches in. Nestled within the flames, they would burst before long, creating gouts of dark orange, purple, green and various other colored smokes or streams of sparks. The children would squeal at each of these and then hurry back to make more.

Another area was a long table, covered in pumpkins that people were carving and placing candles inside, lighting them so that the ghoulish or goofy faces shined in the growing darkness. The pumpkins were placed in a steadily lengthening row next to the table, between the trees at the edge of the forest.

"What the hell is this place?" Kiba said aloud, while he and Hinata drank in the scene with childish amazement.

A gnome who stood by the enclosure, looking bored, turned and said in a high, squeaking voice, "It's the festivities of Hallow's End, don't you know?"

"Hallow's End?" Hinata asked, quietly.

"Aye," the gnome said, bobbing his head. "Don't blame ye for havin' never heard of it. It's a Forsaken Holiday. I first heard tell of it only a few years ago. Meant to celebrate the freedom from the Lich King, or so they say. It's been adopted by other cultures, now, didn't take long, did it? Just an excuse to party, really, and some of the customs and rituals they do are really quite interesting!" he seemed to be growing more excited as he explained, and gestured to the enclosure.

"They've got bobbin' for apples, donut strings, and Jack O'Lanterns—"

"Jacko what?"

"Jack O'Lanterns," the gnome said brightly. "Those pumpkins, quite nice to see, aren't they? Creative and spooky, especially at night. There's another event occurring later this evening as well, if you're interested."

"What is it?"

"It's called, the _Headless Horseman's Ride! _There's a mysterious spirit who wanders about on this night, called the Headless Horseman—he has a Jack O'Lantern for a head, and carries his heart in a satchel at his side, and is said to prey upon the happiness and joy of all who cross him at night!" The gnome seemed really into it now, his eyes bright with dark vigor. "They say that he prowls the roads, and if he finds a cottage alone by it's side, he knocks loudly, and when the owners come to answer, he will throw a bucket of human blood on them, thus cursing them for life to misery and misfortune, and in the end he will return one day, for that blood will never leave them—they will always smell of it, no matter how many times they wash, and when it is there time to go he returns and takes out their heart, which he feeds to his horse and then they ride off into the night, looking for fresh prey, more hearts to devour, more lives to consume in hateful, destructive misery."

He took a breath, narrowing his eyes, his voice slipping into a whisper. "His identity is unknown—the Forsaken say he is a Death Knight who freed himself from the Lich King's hold, but his mind was already gone too far, and now he fancies himself a spirit of the night, and wanders upon his steed. Others say he is misery's incarnation, spawned from the Twisting Nether to prey on only the unfortunate, those who cross his path, no matter if they are saints or sinners. Other's say he was once a paladin of the Silver Hand, now cursed by the foul poisons of the Scourge, insane and believing that he yet remains alive, and the world is now dead." He relaxed suddenly. "But of course, that's just folklore, and even if he was real, he'd be somewhere far above here, in Lordaeron I suspect. Ours is fun for the whole family, though the event is a bit tricky for the more ordinary folk."

"Why's that?" Kiba asked.

"Aye, well, it's because the purpose of the game is to find him, and defeat him in combat!"

Hinata blinked. "Defeat him?" She wrung her hands, trying not to sound awkward. "That seems a little…strange."

"Aye," the gnome said. "I thought so as well. But it sells. There's a lot who wanna prove their worth, and still others just in for the fun of the chase! It's all safe, of course, no worries about that!"

"Hinata!" Kiba bellowed. "Let's do it!"

"B-but Kiba-kun," Hinata said, flushing. "I don't really…"

"Eh?" Kiba deflated, staring at her as if she were a stranger. "But why?"

"If you want to—" she began.

"Nah, if you don't want to, it's fine," he said, putting on a smile. "It wouldn't be as much fun without you." He sighed. "Guess we'll pass."

"Fair enough, the little lady would probably more enjoy what's going on in here at the moment, and there'll be some festive treats out for all of you later, as well." He grinned at Kiba. "Don't look so down. You got a pretty girl by your side, you shouldn't be regretting anything tonight!"

Kiba flushed, and so did Hinata. Neither of them, however, said anything in response.

"Wanna make a Jackowhatever?" Kiba said.

"Sure," Hinata said with a moonbeam smile. Kiba flushed again, and they went inside. The gnome watched them, shaking his head.

--

Should I be enjoying this?

Tenten glanced covertly at the two boys that accompanied her. They were both silent, and so was she, to the point of awkwardness. Nobody had been able to hold, or even willing to hold, a decent conversation since they had started.

Bad idea, she'd thought. Maybe I should've made it clear. She was happy, on one level that Neji was paying attention to her in a way that wasn't strictly professional; she was happy, too, that Shino obviously thought she was pretty—but she didn't know why. She liked Shino as a friend but nothing really past that, which was odd, because she kept telling herself that Shino was probably a lot nicer and less temperamental than Neji. And it wasn't because of the bugs, either. She liked bugs, and Shino obviously had sufficient control over them.

But he wasn't exactly stimulating conversation. He rarely spoke at all, and you couldn't even see half of his face. Some would call it shy, but this was excessive.

They hadn't done much other than wander since they had parted with the others. The fayre was massive, so they hadn't even seen half of it, and there were so many people that it was slow moving, and it was loud, so talking was difficult, but still she wanted to at least have _some_ fun!

"I have to ask," she said aloud.

"What?" Neji said, louder than he might've normally, because of the crowd.

"I said," she said louder, "I have to ask, but are you guys going to be this awkward all night?"

There. She said it. She felt a little bad for calling it out so soon, but she didn't want to waste this night because Neji was a social moron and Shino was just too shy.

"It—" Neji tried, and failed to defend himself. He went silent again, giving a little shrug. Tenten stared at him. What was going on? Neji, the most mature person she had ever met, seemed to be acting like a child. Too much like a child. Then again, he couldn't have done anything this uncertain before, could he?

"What would you like to do, Tenten-san?" Shino said, agreeably. Tenten looked at him, noticing his voice was without hint of stutter or shyness. She was impressed.

"I'd like to just do something fun. Talk, get over this awkward feeling, I don't like it."

"Nor much do I," said Shino.

"Or I," said Neji.

"Good," Tenten said. "So let's get started."

"Perhaps over there?" Shino pointed, adjusting his glasses as he did. They followed his finger, towards the flap of one of the expansive circus tents. "Shall we see what lies within?"

"Okay," said Tenten, quickly, before Neji could disagree and ignite an argument. They made their way through the crowd, arriving at a large opening, attended by two stiff looking ogres. Having never seen ogres before in their lives, it took a moment to gather up the courage to walk past; but the beasts hardly gave them a glance. They seemed only interested in picking their noses.

The tent stank wonderfully as they entered—of aromatic, rich foods and heavy drink, which made Tenten a little light-headed just breathing. Two long tables where the only thing present. Opposite the entrance was another flap, which lead into a smaller tent attached to the side, from which servers were flowing out and back in a steady stream.

"The feast they mentioned," Shino observed.

"Only one table seems to be for that," Neji said, quick to correct. "The other seems to be for drink."

"What's happening at the end, over there?" Tenten pointed to the far end. A mass of people had gathered, and the table was cleared completely. At the head of the table were six large barrels.

"Let's go see," she pressed, and the boys followed without word.

The table was almost filled, and almost completely by men of any age. Tenten asked them what was happening.

He gave her a beaming smile. "Drinkin' contest, milady! For all the best drinkers of ale in these parts! Six o' the world's finest brews, ranging from the goblins o' the Undermines fanciest fruit ale to the Pandaren's brewmasters legendary old brew I fancy myself one o' them, so I'm gonna give it me best!" He winked at the two boys. "Care to impress your lady friend? Come and drink with us, eh, lads?"

"We're underage, sorry," Shino said, with a slight bow.

"Age? What the devil you talking about? There ain't no age limit here! It's the Darkmoone Fayre!"

Tenten glanced at the two of them. She didn't quite feel like participating, but she had a sudden idea that might just salvage the remainder of the night for her. She prayed it would work.

"I'll join you," Tenten said, sitting down next to the old man, who gave her an amazed stare, which turned into a challenging gleam as he returned to look at the boys. They stared at Tenten, as if about to speak, and then at each other, and then at the old man who was already making a spot for them to sit down.

"I will not lose," Shino said, taking a seat.

Neji's eye twitched. He looked again at Tenten, who offered him her best smile.

He sat down.

"Nor I."

--

Time was drifting by. Sakura kept checking the clocks that were posted all over the fayre, watching as it trickled away as if from a leaky cup. They were almost inside, as well, and this had eaten up most of their time.

Two hours!

Two hours to wait for a _freak_ _show_!

"This had better be good," she repeated, this time with an undertone that suggested if it weren't, she'd make somebody pay for it. Naruto was torn between laughing and fearing for his life. He chose neither, and kept quiet until they were inside.

The tent was barely lit—small, green glowing lanterns were hung to light the path, but otherwise it was devouring black. People moved in lines of two, walking slowly down the path, whispering to each other, as Naruto and Sakura did.

"Not much to see," Naruto joked.

"I know…" Sakura mumbled. They both laughed. That stopped almost as soon as they turned the corner. There was more path, but this time, at the end, there was a cage, covered by a glass window, lit from below. People were gawking and whispering and even one woman cried out at the contents of the cage, which they weren't fully able to make out until they were several feet from it.

It watched them, hunched over in a corner, its mirror-like eyes staring wildly at them, a cadaverous grin stretched painfully across its rotting face. A ghoul.

Having seen one before, Naruto was yet amazed. "What the hell? Isn't that dangerous?"

"I think so, if it got out…" Sakura said, staring at it.

As they moved past, the longer Naruto stared at it, the longer he thought he might recognize it. There was something about it's face, the way it was rotting, felt familiar to him…so why…?

Just as they turned the corner towards the next cage, Naruto swear he saw the beast wink at him. He turned to confirm it, but the ghoul had gotten up and rushed the cage, scaring the consciousness out of two ladies behind them. The crowd moved faster forwards.

The next cage contained something Naruto hadn't seen before. It was hunched and huge, with a furry body like a bear—long claws and everything—but its head was owl-like, with a sharply curved beak and cunning, shifting eyes. Deer-antlers sprouted from the sides of its head, completing the strange monstrosity.

"The hell is that?" Naruto said, wanting to laugh, but unsure if he was allowed to in a girl's presence.

Sakura had no such reservations. "An accident, it looks like."

"That's cold, Sakura-chan," he said, grinning at her.

"The truth is harsh," she said, laughing harder.

A display by the side of the cage called it an owlbeast, from the Hinterlands to the North.

They moved on. The next cage contained what appeared to be a large bug, like looking through a magnifying glass at a household pest. The creature made cryptic buzzing noises that made them light-headed, so they moved on quickly after identifying it as a _silithid_, from Kalimdor's remote deserts.

They moved through the endless, zigzagging paths, seeing things neither of them had ever imagined seeing; things Naruto had encountered many times in his travels, things that were obviously fake, things that were too real to believe. The tent then seemed massive, and they had no idea how long they had spent within the throngs of this dark, mysterious world.

But neither of them had had so much fun in, well, forever. At least together. They'd never had a proper date, never had a proper chance to be alone and see what exactly the other was like, little things that they would have never noticed unless they had done this. Sakura, for example, loved horror books, and she mentioned this to Naruto when they were done staring at a patchwork monstrosity that stood too still to be anything more than a model, called Rankenstein (the explanation was that it needed a little _spark_ to get it going, but neither of them were having any of that).

By contrast, Naruto enjoyed soap operas and trashy romance films, to Sakura's immense surprise, but only because they reminded him of his landlord and landlady, who would often invite Naruto to their home to watch those things, the only time in Naruto's childhood that seemed nice to him. He had an immensely happy, cozy expression on his face when he mentioned it, which tugged rather harshly at Sakura's heartstrings.

They then came to a corner with no enclosure at the end; only a doorway faintly lit with viridian light, and both of them came upon a strange feeling as they walked towards it, as if they were approaching something powerful, something too big for the small tent. Nobody else seemed to feel this, nobody else even cared to break stride, but neither of them could prevent themselves from stopping just before the threshold, staring into the gloom in trepidition.

"What is that?" Naruto mumbled.

Sakura shook her head. It was a strange feeling, warm and nice but so _powerful_, almost in excess. Like the feeling one got from sleeping too much, an excessive pleasure that drained the mind and body. It wasn't exactly fear that prevented them from entering, just a warding sense like heat from a fire. It felt like that. A great fire before them, rising higher than either of them could see, but could feel a mile away.

"Oi, little lad and lass," a man grunted behind them. "Budge up, yer 'oldin' up the line, ye know!"

"Aye!" a woman said, next to him.

"Sorry," Sakura said, gently taking Naruto's hand and starting into the room. It was large in comparison to the narrow path that they had followed before. A circular room, not lit save for the center which housed a great enclosure like all the rest, only the creature in this one was not like all the rest.

Not at all.

Sakura squeezed Naruto's hand, gulping at the strange beast that neither of them could figure out. It was about as tall as two men, and half as wide. It did not have a form—just a dozen strangely cut shapes of glowing material—circles and triangles and weirdly curving trapezoids floating inches or feet apart from each other, connected by strings of sparking electricity. It was the color of sunlight, but it's light didn't stretch past the enclosure, and the way it moved—in constant, rhythmic cycles, around and around, each piece of it moving on its own separate axis, and the entire thing moving on its own as well.

Like stars and planets, Sakura thought.

People were gazing at it in rapture, not caring that they did not understand what it was, and moved on without even bothering to find out. It was beautiful, and its mystery was a great part of the beauty. Like a work of art, they didn't want to spoil that beautiful mystery with logic or explanations.

It was the first time Sakura might've shared their thoughts. She couldn't take her eyes off the thing.

Naruto couldn't either. It felt…very similar to something from before, but he couldn't imagine what. It felt like—chakra, yet not. It was _chakra_, it was entirely _chakra_…right?

Like the Kyuubi.

Sakura moved a little forwards, tearing her eyes away from the thing to stare at the plaque on its cage.

"_Naaru," _she said aloud.

Naruto glanced vaguely at her. "Eh?"

"It says it's a _naaru_—'_a being entirely of chakra, from origins unknown. Do not approach the enclosure, do not use magic in its presence. Do not insult it, offend it or try to feed it, for this might result in extreme harm to your person or your pride. Might cause you to live the rest of your life as a rabbit or a toad, or perhaps in soul-twisting agony deep within the bowels of the Twisting Nether. It joined the Darkmoone Fayre of it's own free will, and may leave whenever it wants. Possibly Limited Time Exhibit._'"

"It feels weird," Naruto said, quietly.

"Yeah," Sakura said. They began to move towards the door along with the rest of the visitors, not once taking their eyes off the creature. It made no sound, maybe a distant humming, but that might've been the crowd outside.

The next hall led out into the distant night. Both of them took deep breaths, both glad and a little disappointed to be away from the naaru. It took them a moment to realize they were still holding each other's hand.

They stood awkwardly for a moment, just looking at each other. Sakura didn't withdraw her hand. Neither did Naruto. Time had stopped, sweetly and blissfully, until Sakura made to lean forwards. Then Naruto did too.

The night air was sweet.

They stopped. Then they kissed.

* * *

Chapter break. Another chapter will be up as soon as I proof-read it! I broke the big one into two, so read at your own leisure!

Also—the "Mainland" I refer to in reference to Tenten's and Ino's dresses is a continent that I made up for Naruto's world. Since his world is to parody Japan, I think, and it can't be the only continent in the world, I made a "Mainland" which will never be featured in this fic, ever. Ten Ten's family is from the mainland, distantly.


	37. The Darkmoone Fayre: Moonlight

_Disclaimer: I want no part in the ownership of Naruto or World of Warcraft…way too much work…_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Kira rocked back and forth on her heels, waiting for Naruto and Sakura to return, growing both anxious and excited for the coming hours. It was becoming more real, and every time she thought of it, it made her shake and flush and her mind race faster than a hare fearing for its life.

This was so—almost too—normal.

She didn't know how to do normal. She's always expected her love life to be predetermined for her, like an arranged marriage with some noble's son, or a competent soldier expected to sire a king or something like that. Hence, she hadn't given it much thought, ever, even when Naruto had fallen into her life (or more accurately, climbed).

But as the months had passed, and then the years, she had grown comfortable with Naruto's presence, which had then progressed to thoughts of being with him, of marrying him (in her more wistful moments), of being, well, in love with him. She'd ignored them at first, but then they'd return in abundance, proliferating gloriously.

Sometimes they got dirty, and when that happened, it was hard to ignore them.

Very hard.

Halfway between the destruction of Stormwind and Naruto's return from Onyxia's cavern, she reached the conclusion that she did like him. A lot.

Maybe she even loved him.

Once she had accepted that, it was like a weight off her thoughts. But then doubt had set in, not of her love for him, but of his feelings for her.

A doubt that raged on even now.

She wrung her hands nervously, her teeth grinding, a sheen of sweat appearing on her forehead which she was desperately trying to keep off. He'd be here any minute, and her hair looked awful, and she was a bit sweaty and she probably smelled awful despite all the perfume she'd used. He'd hate it, she had to—

Then she saw him—them, more importantly, making their way slowly through the crowd towards her. They stood pretty close, which made her breath hitch, and they both seemed to be red in the face and untalkative. She swore she saw their hands touch briefly—was that an accident, or real…?

She fought to control her breathing, wondering if this was a good idea. Maybe they had done something. Maybe something had happened—and if something had, then maybe she shouldn't have her time with him, maybe she should just skip it and go back to the castle and leave them to themselves—

No!

She stopped, and released the building tension with a long, deep exhalation. "No," she said to herself. She'd do this. She deserved it, and even if something had happened, she still had to tell him. Make sure he knew of her feelings, and maybe even get some idea of his feelings for her. It didn't matter what had happened with Sakura.

Not one bit.

She nodded to herself, and continued to do it as they approached.

"Kira-chan!" Naruto finally said, not loudly, but enough to break her from her thoughts. She smiled at him, and smoothed down her dress a bit.

"Hello, Naruto, Sakura," she said, bowing to both. "Did you two have fun?"

"Yes…" Sakura said, a trace wistfully. Kira blinked at her, but the girl had already looked away, at her shoes. "Yes. There's tons to do, so Naruto won't be bored."

"Yeah," Naruto said. "We didn't even nearly do everything. What have you been doing?"

Kira shrugged. "Just looking about. I met with Kylia earlier, and we talked a bit, and then I went and met Hinata and Kiba at the Hallow's End festival near the back…"

"We didn't see that," Naruto said.

"Then we'll go again," Kira said, smiling. She looked at Sakura. "You'll have to tell me all about it later."

Sakura smiled. "Of course." She blushed too. What did that mean? Kira thought.

"What are you doing now?" Naruto asked Sakura, frowning a little.

"I'll probably go bother Ino and Chouji, and see if anything has been happening with them, and then maybe find Shino, Neji and Tenten and make sure the two guys haven't killed each other…"

"I saw them going into the feast tent, earlier," Kira said. "They might be there."

"Noted," Sakura said. She bowed a little and backed away, smiling. "You guys enjoy yourselves! Maybe we'll meet later, I think there's a concert or something in the big tent somewhere about two o' clock…"

"Seeya Sakura-chan," Naruto said.

"Good bye, Sakura," Kira said, bowing a little also.

She left quickly, but not before shooting a final look at Naruto, her face coloring a little when she remembered what had happened. She didn't even care that Kira was going to be with him, now.

They had kissed!

A lot, too.

If that wasn't something, then what could be?

"So," Naruto said, turning to Kira. "Whaddya want to do now?"

Kira smiled. "You said you wanted to see the Hallow's End festival, right? I think something is happening around now, an event of some sort…"

"Cool!"

--

"Whoa, what's going on here?" Kiba mumbled, staring about the tent with wide eyes.

"It looks like a feast, Kiba-kun," Hinata said, scanning the tables, hoping to see someone they knew (perhaps Naruto-kun?). Her eyes lit up when she saw Neji, Tenten and Shino near the back.

"Ah! Kiba-kun, let's go over there!" she pointed. Kiba followed her finger, and caught sight of them at once.

"Sure."

Kiba was at once aware, as they approached their friends, of a smell that would've made Akamaru whimper. The intensely powerful smell of alcohol and the stinking sweat and vomit of a dozen older men made him gag, as it was magnified a thousand times over thanks to his nose. He covered it, gasping for air.

Hinata could smell it too. She gulped and blinked furiously at the dream in front of her.

Her cousin Neji—reserved, stern and fun-avoiding Neji—was quite clearly drunk. A warm flush graced his porcelain skin, his mouth was constantly open and his eyes were dull and glazed. He clutched a pint of some foul-smelling ale in front of him, and just managing to stay on his seat. He blearily looked at the girl next to him—Tenten, who looked not in the least bit drunk, and mumbled something incoherent.

Tenten glanced at him blushing, but turned back to her ale quickly, until Hinata asked her what was wrong.

"Oh, eh—Hinata!" Tenten said, looking immensely happy to see her. "Siddown! There's plenty o' drink fer everyone!"

"D-drink?" Hinata said. She thought better of her first judgment—now she saw the flush, the bleary eyes, the slurred tongue. "But we're underage…!"

"Oi, where's Shino?" Kiba asked, looking around for the hooded boy.

"I'm here, Kiba," said a strange boy to Tenten's left.

Kiba glanced at the boy. "Nah, our friend's covered in stuff, and always wears sunglasses, so—" But he stopped, and looked at the boy closer. "But what…? Shino, is that—? What the hell?"

"What is the matter?" Shino asked, reasonably.

"You're not wearing…your…?"

Shino gave a slight shrug. The boy—sporting fuzzy brown hair without his hood and without his glasses, his eyes were a clear blue—looked ordinary. There was no flush to his cheeks or slur to his words. But from the mugs that littered the table before him, it was clear he had drunk just as much as the other two.

"You okay, Shino?"

"Yes," Shino said, nodding, and even smiling.

Kiba twitched. It seemed unnatural for Shino to be smiling. He'd seen him smile all of twice, and it wasn't the kind of smile that graced his lips now. This was too large, too…not…Shino….

Hinata swallowed. "W-what have you all been doing?"

"Drinkin'!" Tenten said.

Neji mumbled something.

"We've been at this ale festival here," said Shino casually. "So far, I think I'm winning."

"Did you just contract "we" and "have"?" Hinata asked, softly.

"Yeah, why?" Shino asked, his face so expressive that it hurt Hinata to look at it.

Meanwhile, Neji was staring at Kiba. Staring so hard that it made Kiba take a step back. Neji's mouth hung slightly open and he was very still—he looked…dead.

"You okay, Neji?" Kiba asked.

Neji didn't answer. He just stared.

Kiba glanced at Hinata. "This is freaking me out."

"Y-yeah. Neji-niisan, what's wrong?"

Finally, Neji turned away, and mumbled something with a small smile curving on his blank face. Tenten exploded in obnoxious laughter, so hard that she fell off her seat and writhed on the floor, yelling "it makesh sho much sense!"

Bewildered, Kiba and Hinata looked at Shino, who was laughing a little as well as he supped his ale. "What'd he say?" Kiba asked.

"He said—"

"Heshaid—" giggled Tenten, staring up at Kiba with a knowing eye, "thatyou've gotta…gotta…a—a—a—small _thing_...like a _mouse_ _tail_!"

Shino snorted.

Kiba exploded, jumping in horror. "I DO NOT HAVE A SMALL…THING!" he roared.

Tenten laughed. "Hehehehepenis!" she giggled.

"He's not far off the mark," Shino said, laughing.

"Shino! I DO NOT!" he quickly glanced at Hinata, and said, "it's not true, really!"

Hinata, flushing, nodded and pretended to be reassuring and that it didn't matter, not having the heart to crush his…little…hopes. But then again, she couldn't be too mean about it—she didn't know if it mattered not in the first place, only having heard that it did.

She smiled, and said it was rather funny, nearly choking on laughter as she did.

"It is not!" Kiba raged. "You didn't even have your Byakugan on, Neji!"

Neji turned, looking dazed. "I have teeth," he said, quite rightly.

Tenten exploded into fresh bouts of laughter. Shino snickered. Hinata couldn't contain herself anymore and began to laugh so hard that her sides hurt. Kiba stared at her, and then at the three drunkards, and his anger fizzled out into laughter as well. He reasoned that he at least had something to hold over them for a while, so while they might be having the laugh now—but when they sobered, they wouldn't hear the end of it.

He turned to Hinata. "Wanna stay? I kind of feel like blackmail now."

Hinata nodded, smiling. "Yes, of course."

Neji turned to Hinata. "There's a button on my shirt."

"Yes, I know, Neji-niisan."

"Five."

"I know."

"Good."

--

The forest was alive with shifting shapes and form—no lights, just whispered voices and hurried motions in the shadowed underbrush. Neither Naruto nor Kira could see much, but having been better trained than the rest, it meant they had an advantage in tracking. Naruto could sense everyone around him, and smell them too, and Kira could hear their hurried feelings and thoughts as they rushed by, seeking their quarry.

"It's gonna be obvious," Naruto had said earlier. "Big and covered in fire, yeah?"

The gnome who had set them on the task had nodded. "Yes! Quite frightful, really."

As they sifted through the shadows, the wind rustling the trees above lightly, disturbing only a few leaves and sending them floating lazily to the ground—merely silhouettes in the night, neither Kira nor Naruto felt afraid. Kira because she knew there was nothing to be afraid of, and Naruto because he had other things to occupy his thoughts. He tried to keep them from rising up, but it was hard—he'd just achieved one of his life-long dreams. Or one of the dreams he'd had as a child, at least.

He'd kissed Sakura-chan.

A lot.

If there was anything to go by, he still didn't remember how long it took. He just remembered they'd been there for a while, their lips together like that. There had been tongue, too. Lots of it. It made him blush in the darkness, glad Kira couldn't see him.

But now he felt nervous, and bad—was he supposed to be here? Should he feel guilty that he was with another girl now? It was Kira-chan, but still….

He reasoned that he shouldn't. While they hadn't talked about it afterwards, Naruto got the feeling that Sakura had been just as surprised by it as he, and she would perhaps need a little time to sort it out. He certainly did. Did this mean they were going out?

Nah, that couldn't be it. Jiraiya had told him that before you started going out, you needed to be clear on the subject. A kiss, he'd said, rarely meant anything these days. Back in his time it'd been quite something, but the times had changed and women were more easygoing about that sort of thing. Certainly Sakura wouldn't be that old-fashioned.

Kira suddenly touched his arm. His thoughts of Sakura were jolted from him.

"Through here," she said, smiling at him so that he could just barely make it out. He flushed again, and nodded.

Then he felt it—the stirrings in his mind. Faint little prickles that told him they were close. He turned his mind away from the furiously embarrassing thoughts towards this new objective.

Kicking this horseman's ass.

He needed it—he'd be able to think clearer after he did something he could do so well. Fighting would at least allow him to expunge some energy. He grinned in the darkness, and muttered a quite, "yosh!" as they started forwards.

There was a light, somewhere ahead of them: green and flickering, haunting as a mournful aria. Naruto and Kira crouched in some bushes at the edge of the road, and watched their quarry intently as it trotted down the road, making its way leisurely towards the city.

If it was a costume, it was a bad one. Some rickety, rusted armor that hardly seemed imposing for a spirit of darkness, a crimson kilt and flowing cape that were torn and dusty-looking, a satchel where it kept its heart, a sword that didn't look like it could cut butter and an axe that seemed more like a hammer, both rusted as well—and on top all of that, some cheap mask that looked like a skull set inside a helmet with silly green flames wafting from the eye sockets and mouth. The only thing haunting about it was the light, and how eerily it moved—it trotted but it seemed like a speeded up film, crossing their path in a jittery shamble.

It stood atop a horse that looked more real than its rider. Skeletal, covered in flames that burned green and strangely cool in the night, dressed in battle armor, but obviously a trick because the fire "conveniently" covered all the visible spots between the horses "bones".

Despite all that, Naruto hoped it was a good fighter. He needed somebody good to settle the amount of tension he had now.

"Oi, Kira-chan," he whispered, looking at her. "Think I can take him by myself? I got a feeling that he isn't gonna be that hard."

Kira was staring at the creature, frowning. "I thought it was supposed to be headless…" she said, frowning, but then turned and looked at him. "Okay. I will help if you need it, though."

"Don't think I will, but thanks," he said, grinning. She smiled back.

Naruto couldn't stop the blush this time. Geez, she was really _cute_.

"'Sides," he said. "I don't wanna get that dress all dirty."

She nodded. "Thank you for your concern, o' chivalrous knight." Her voice was a little mocking, but it made him grin even wider.

Naruto stood.

"OI!" he called.

The rider turned its torso to face him and it finally stopped. The green fire in the eyes grew brighter, and it gave a mocking, whispered laugh that drifted on the wind. Naruto's eye twitched at the theatrics.

"I gotta defeat you? You better be good, or I'm gonna be annoyed—I might even want my money back, asshole."

"_It is over_," it said, its whispery voice growing louder, echoing distantly. "_Your search is done! Let fate choose now, the righteous one!"_

It whirled and exploded towards him. Naruto raised his hands, and summoned a pair of _kage bunshin_ on either side of him. They sped away from Naruto, who went forwards to meet the Horseman head on. His clones closed in from the sides, in a pincer attack, kunai drawn. Naruto had left his new sword at home, but he didn't really need it for this.

The Horseman lifted his sword, which burned with theatrically orange flames. Naruto snorted.

His clones attacked in tandem. They were suddenly not there, whisping through the night using _Kazaashi_, striking the Horseman simultaneously from each side. Naruto hit from the front in that moment too. All three attacks struck at once.

The kunaimet steel, which flashed and arced orange in the night. Then came a flash of haunting green, and both of Naruto's clones were blasted from existence by a widening corona of emerald fire. It fired outwards from the Horseman, and even though Naruto's frontal attack had struck—his fist had punched the Horseman squarely in the jaw—it hit Naruto with a jarring, wild force that blew him back a dozen feet along the road.

He landed roughly on his back, but jumped quickly to his feet, beating the green flames from his chest, hissing angrily at the pain in his chest, already fading. He'd been burned worse.

The Horseman charged.

Only now, he was Headless.

It's head had flown a few yards in the opposite direction, landing roughly on the ground and rolling with a few clinks until it came to rest against the foot of a tree, facing Naruto and its body.

The headless armor had no head inside it—only a rising spire of green flames that gave off no smoke. The sword came up, and its axe went to the side. Naruto set himself again, gritting his teeth.

But he was grinning.

Finally!

The world was slow now, or so it seemed. Naruto went for the horse itself this time. He could shatter all four of its kneecaps in the span of two seconds, probably and he made to do it, but he was stopped again.

The horse howled—not a whinny, but a frightening, ghastly roar more akin to a demon's— and leapt. Over each of Naruto's lightning-fast punches. Over each of the attacks that could've taken out an orc if he'd hit in the right place. They were not clear misses, either—each one missed by about an inch, but nothing seemed so deliberate. As if the Horse itself—and its rider—were mocking his supposed strength.

He stopped, and turned. The Headless Horseman galloped away, turning in a long arc, and moving back towards him with the unnaturally sped-up gallop. It lifted its axe high above its head, and then let fly.

The axe moved with more speed than it should have. It flew so fast that it seemed a solid green disc, after-images gleaming in the night air. It would have slain Naruto instantly if it had touched him, but he was fast too, and had backed up before it had struck. It hammered the ground, which became awash with viridian flames. They grew towards him, as if searching specifically for Naruto, dying to taste his flesh. He leapt back, grunting, as the Horseman came at him again.

It drew up its axe as it flew by, and raised it for a second shot. At the same time, it's blade came across in a sweeping motion which charged the air with heat and sent a stream of boiling red flames in a widening arc across the road.

Naruto went under them, drawing himself up as quickly as he could as he met the Horseman for a second time. It slashed at him with its sword, but Naruto went towards the opposite side, driving a solid palm into the horse's side—the armor buckled inwards, and a few of the flaming steed's bones cracked and fell away. But it didn't stop—Naruto avoided a blow from the axe and with final desperation he latched onto the horseman's leg.

It came off. All of it.

With faint surprise, Naruto tumbled back, clutching the severed leg. He looked at the Horseman, which was riding away, back towards its head.

He looked at the leg again—inside the armor was rotten, charred bone. It smelt so real as well. So terribly real that it might've been so if this hadn't been advertised as a family-friendly event. He looked up at the Horseman, which had retrieved its head and was adjusting it on its shoulders.

Then it hit him.

It was a gnome!

No wonder—they'd dressed a gnome up in some special armor suit that allowed him to control it completely from within—it had detachable limbs and everything, and nobody would be able to tell what was in it. He nodded. They were good about this, he conceded. Not only had they made a convincing imitation of a spirit (he reformed his first opinion of it—it was really quite good) but they had made it strong as well. Really strong!

But Naruto wouldn't let it get the best of him. He'd fought stronger things before. Some gnome in a suit wouldn't get the best of him (they never had so far, at least!).

The Horseman cackled again, its cloak billowing as it blazed towards Naruto again, the flames from its sword trailing in a hazy stream, emerald fire leaping up on the road where the horse tread, and its fast-forward movement sped up. Naruto bent down, and began to make a few seals. He wasn't sure if this was allowed, but he'd be damned if this thing ruined his night with Kira-chan.

'_Houton: Hyoushi no jutsu'_

A waft of super-frozen air exploded from Naruto's mouth, drenching the flaming Horseman as it bore down on the boy. Thick sheets of ice grew over its armor, freezing the joints, dousing the green flames, making the bones of the horse brittle and crack with each step, and no doubt making the gnome inside rethink his decision of messing with Uzumaki Naruto.

They always did.

Triumphant, Naruto stepped back to observe his work. With only two more steps in his direction, the Horseman's horse tumbled forwards, its front two legs completely shattered at the knee. Upon impact, its head broke apart as well, scattering bits of frozen bone across the dusty road, while the Horseman himself tumbled forwards onto the ground, his flame gone, his body still.

"How's that?" Naruto snorted, smirking over his victory. Kira emerged from the trees behind him, torn between smiling and frowning at the fallen warrior. She hoped whoever was inside was alright. It couldn't be good for them to be stuck in something that conducted cold so easily…

"Perhaps we should help him?" she asked, softly.

Naruto deflated a bit, and nodded. "Yeah, I suppose. We have to get our reward, after all!"

He took a step towards the creature, when it exploded. Its head lurched up, and it gave a cry: "_Think I'm gone? Then think again! Our battle rages on!"_

Flames exploded from the Horseman's body, fanning outwards, engulfing the ground in a molten field of green flames, which hungrily took up pursuit of Naruto and Kira as they dodged away, moving back to the trees. The Horseman began to laugh again, as its steed's pieces began to gather themselves for a second round.

"Dammit," Naruto raged, staring at the Horseman as its horse rose for battle once more. "He's good, this guy!"

Kira was frowning at it again. There was that feeling she had—an odd feeling, pricklings not unlike what she felt from undead, but markedly different in a way that she didn't understand. Stronger might be the word, or even hotter; there was still life force, yes, so she could just be feeling an effect of the illusion that the gnome was casting, but for some reason she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong about this entire situation.

She had to admit though, it was a fine bit of illusion-weaving. She couldn't have done better herself. It almost _seemed_ real.

"This is fun!" Naruto said, grinning. "Wanna help this time?" he usually didn't like it when others fought a battle with him, but with Kira—as he'd done it before—there was no trouble this time.

Kira smiled. "I wouldn't want to ruin your fun."

"Or your dress," Naruto said, frowning. "Forget I said anything. You're not coming."

Kira smiled as Naruto leapt into the battle again.

Clones descended on the recovered Horseman, hitting him from all sides. They rained punches and kicks, denting his rusted, blackened armor, knocking his axe from his hand—two even began to play catch with its head, which they had again knocked off its shoulders. The Horseman raged in rhyme the entire time.

Naruto himself finally sped up and slammed his whole weight into the creature, lifting if off its horse, throwing it to the dust. On the ground, Naruto descended with a final, bone-cracking punch that left the Horseman unmoving on the ground, its steed shrieking horribly, its head still in mid-air.

"_Harken, cur!"_ the head bellowed in between its unwilling game of catch (which had now escalated to a game of racketball with two sticks the clones had found).

"'_Tis you I spurn! Now, boy_, _feel the burn!"_

Standing over his body, Naruto caught a glimpse of a change within the Horseman. The green light that bled from every nook on the armored body began to darken and twist until it had become an evil red, like the blood on a the tip of a executioner's axe. Like colored flames began to leak from its chest through the neck hole where its head had been attached. These flames felt different. They did not just burn with heat, Naruto realized. They burned with anger, too.

He could feel it—a rage unconnected with his own, stinging the air around him. He took a step back, and as the flames grew larger so did the rage, until it became almost overwhelming. Retreating with his clones, Naruto kept near the edge of the road, watching as the flames rose higher and higher and higher.

"_So eager you are, for my blood to spill." _The flames had formed something, a face in the gloom, mocking them with its eternal grin.

"_Yet to vanquish me, 'tis my head you must kill."_

The head had risen, and now floated in mid-air above the road. Its eye sockets had turned the awful red, and a tongue of flames was flickering from its mouth as it laughed at them. The head then shot into the middle of the blaze, along with the skeletal horse, and both were engulfed in the scarlet fire.

Then, it was snuffed like a dead candle, and they were gone.

As they made their way back to the fayre, Naruto raged.

"We almost had that bastard!" Naruto said, crossing his arms.

"I know." Kira said, shaking her head.

"Sorry, Kira-chan," he said, flushing.

She shook her head again. "It was fun. I got to see you fight, which I haven't in a long time. It reminds me of all the times we did fight together, back then."

"In the good ol' days," Naruto said, laughing.

Kira laughed too. "In a manner of speaking, I suppose."

"Still, who says it could flee, anyways? That's annoying!"

"Maybe it had to fix itself up, we can still find it…"

"Nah, let's do something else," said Naruto, shrugging. "Have you eaten yet?"

"A little, but I'm a bit hungrier now."

"Food it is."

They came out into the festive lights and sounds of the fayre, right beside the Hallow's End enclosure. There was a crowd around the entrance, gazing in awe at something ahead of them. Curious, they wandered over to have a better look.

"We have here, the champions of the Horseman's Hunt!" the gnome who had told them of the contest shouted to all around. "Feast your eyes on their enemy, defeated!"

In the middle of the enclosure, a man dressed in shiny black plate armor—looking more ornate than even the castle guards, with skulls for shoulderguards, various spikes sprouting from various parts of the body, and a helmet that was only shaped like a skull, was waving and grinning at people who were calling out to him. He had a horse, but it was not skeletal, only dressed in a deep black cloak to cover most of its legs and armor to cover its head, which had been enchanted to give it an eerie glow. The people who had "defeated" the Horseman was a family of five—a man and a woman and three boys of varying ages—who were smiling and waving at the audience as well, waiting to collect their prize.

Naruto was dumbfounded. "That can't be right…" he said.

Kira was mystified as well. "Then who was…?"

"That's lame."

Kira nodded. "Yes, perhaps we just got confused. There might be another man dressed in it."

"For harder people." Naruto said, nodding. "No way it was real."

"Right."

"A crazy guy, maybe."

"Most likely."

They walked away, doing their best to forget the whole thing.

--

Later that night, after a wonderfully filling meal and some more gazing around the fayre—Naruto had taken her to the freak show, after a much shorter wait in line (she'd been as awed by Naruto and Sakura by the _naaru_, only afterwards, not only had they not kissed, but Naruto had to listen to a long lecture about what they were and various theories on what they had done for the world, which hadn't been wholly bad, just unexpected)—they arrived at the largest tent for the final event of the evening. A concert.

Walking with Kira had been wonderful, though. It was like the last time they went, only this time, there was hardly anything to think of besides being with each other. Before, Naruto had been worried about how he was going to get home, and then how he was going to convince the undead to join the alliance, and so many other things that had been in the way of them having a truly good time.

But now, neither of them thought of anything beyond that day. It was easy for Naruto, as he'd already done it with Sakura; once Kira had stopped learning to fear what was going to happen, she began to enjoy it a lot more. She no longer cared about what happened with Sakura, or about anything wrong with the date. She just enjoyed it, and talked.

Talking with Kira was much easier, to Naruto, then with Sakura. They'd begun their relationship with such free talking, but Naruto was still getting accustomed to it with Sakura. He knew loads about Kira's likes and dislikes, whereas he was still learning bits and pieces about Sakura that he'd never known before.

So instead of talking about each other, they just talked about what they saw around them, and a little of what had been happening recently. They didn't go too deeply into the affairs that might depress or spoil the fun, just talked lightly of things and their views on them.

Kira asked a lot about Naruto's friends, especially when they ran into them. In the food hall they'd met up with Hinata, Kiba, Tenten, Neji and Shino, three of which had been stinking drunk, the other two just watching in vast amusement. Kira had put a stop to the drinking, but hadn't been able to stop Naruto from teasing the three drunkards in various ways, as Kiba had been doing.

They'd walked through the freak show with Ino and Chouji, who'd been even more impressed by the creatures than Naruto and Sakura had been, and then afterwards had let Chouji show them the best stall in the house—a place that sold small sugary pastries shaped like rings, sometimes filled with jam or a creamy custard.

After more wandering, more game-playing, more general fun, they had arrived at the band's tent, where there was a huge line for tickets. The line mostly consisted of various Kalimdorians—trolls, tauren and orcs—who had not yet left the city. Though, when Naruto and Kira joined the line, more humans and gnomes began to enter as well.

Naruto stared at the sign as they bought their tickets and entered the tent. He still couldn't believe the name of the band.

"It's not bad," Kira said, frowning. "I've heard they're very good."

"Yeah, but, what do they mean by 'Level 80?'"

"It's obvious, is it not?" Kira said, frowning in confusion at him.

"Whaddya mean, it's obvious?"

"They're Level 80," she said, shrugging as they took their seats.

"What does that mean?"

Kira sighed. "It's not that hard to understand, Naruto."

"It is! Just tell me!"

"I have. They're Level 80."

"But what—"

When Naruto couldn't drag the reason out of her, they sat in silence for a while, as the crowds began to form. An announcement said it'd be at least a half an hour before the band started, so they went out of the tent for a final walk-around.

They ended up near the edge of the fayre, where the clearing sloped into a valley covered in trees, and the moon stared brightly at them above the trees in a great white smile. Pearly light made Kira's dress ethereal, almost moonlight itself. She flushed when she caught him staring.

"Sorry," Naruto mumbled, looking away.

"It's fine," she said.

They were silent. They listened to the night birds in the forest, the crickets chirping, the trees wafting, and the fayre crowds behind them too. But everything seemed so distant now, so quiet, that to stir from that place seemed like it might shatter the tenuous beauty that it held. That was all this was, Kira thought.

A tenuous beauty.

They wouldn't be able to enjoy any of this for long, not after this. It was a passing dream, and once the day was over, it would be broken. The beauty would be gone, the ugliness of the world would return. The people of her city would go back to their hateful ways—she'd been surprised that she'd seen no fights all night—and the non-humans would continue to go back to their worlds and homes.

It was all just temporary. Tonight was a special night only because she was able to control the dream she was in. She wished she could see another night like this. A night without care or qualm.

Naruto stared at her in her thoughts. She looked melancholy, terrified, yet peaceful all at once. He snagged hold of a passing thought, and frowned.

"Stop thinking," he said.

She blinked, and turned to him. "What?"

"I said stop thinking. You're gonna get all depressed again, aren't you?"

She smiled a little. "I was trying not to, but I suppose it must've shown otherwise."

"Yeah."

She leaned closer to him. He tensed. "I wonder," she said.

"Wonder what?"

"Did you kiss her?"

"Eh?"

Kira looked at him, a smile dancing on her lips. "Did you kiss Sakura?"

"Uhm…" He couldn't hide it. Better not even try. "Yes."

"Ah," she said. Don't think of it, she told herself. Don't think. "Would you kiss me?"

Heart hammering faster than a manic dwarf, Naruto just stared. His mouth was dry and sweat formed pearls on his forehead, and under his arms, and everywhere. He became aware of them, wondering if she cared.

"Uhm," he said. "I'm sweaty."

"I don't care."

He shifted a little, staring into her violet eyes. He flushed.

"Ah, okay."

--

"Oi!" Kiba bellowed, waving through the crowds, "There you are!"

Naruto waved back. "Saved you guys seats!"

Hinata and Kiba, with Sakura behind them, sat down next to Naruto and Kira on one of the many long circular bleachers that had been set up around the tent, overlooking the center where the stage had been set up. The band had five members, each, amazingly, of a different race. A troll on bass, an undead on lead guitar, a blood elf (their newest member, apparently) on rhythm guitar, a tauren on drums, and an orc on vocals. All of them were clad in plate armor of wild and fantastic design, some of which glowed electric colors, others of which just seemed intense and powerful as the band tried to project itself as.

"They're metal," Kiba said. "I think."

"Yeah?" Sakura made a face. "I'm not a fan."

"Nor am I," Kira said.

"I—I've never heard it…" Hinata confessed.

"You'll really love it!" Naruto said.

"Yeah!" Kiba said, raising a hand. "Never heard this band before. What do you think they mean by Level 80?"

Naruto grinned at Kira, who sighed and shook her head.

For two people who had just shared their first real kiss, neither of them felt that embarrassed. Naruto couldn't explain it. He had before, but once it was over, he'd just felt…comfortable. She had as well. It'd been nice.

So much so they had done it a second time.

Now, it didn't feel weird. It'd felt a little weird with Sakura, but only because it had been unexpected and unexplained. But Sakura didn't seem uncomfortable with it at all, anymore. She smiled and talked to him as normal, perhaps even better than before. So he did as well. There was no point in making an issue out of it, he decided. He could forget the nervousness he still felt about both right now, and the words that kept coming back to him. There was no point in thinking about it now.

"Where're the drunken monkeys?" Naruto asked.

"Passed out a long time ago," Kiba said, snickering. We brought them to the drunk tent, and left them there to sleep. They'll be fine in the morning, I guess."

"Shino was fine when we met him."

"He's a 'normal drunk'," Kiba said, shrugging. "My dad told me about them. They're weird normally, but when they're drunk they act like everyone else."

"Neji's the opposite, then?"

"Oh yeah."

Hinata was giggling. "Then Tenten-san is the happy drunk?"

"Very happy," Sakura agreed, shaking her head. "Have you two seen Chouji and Ino?"

Naruto nodded. "They're probably still eating. Chouji was eating all night."

"Ino might have to watch her figure."

"I dunno if he cares that much about it," Naruto said, with a shrug.

"Me neither," Sakura said, with a laugh.

The band had started, shouting a greeting to the world, and then began. The band was frightfully loud, the music screeching and reverberating throughout the tent. The rhythm was inconsistent, bellowing, the bass so heavy that it made tremors throughout everyone's seats. The singer was good, yelling about things that nobody understood, but Naruto and Kiba—who understood the point of metal—still loved it, while Kira and Sakura made faces at each other behind their backs, and Hinata seemed frozen to her seat by the shrieking sounds.

At some point, Ino and Chouji joined them, laughing and pointing at the band—Chouji giving a thumbs-up to Naruto and Kiba, Ino shaking her head along with Sakura and Kira.

But they enjoyed it. Nobody gave any thought beyond the music, anything that had been troubling them—between each other, or the world around them—was washed away into obscurity. They didn't care. This was their time, the only time they could get for a long time to relax, to enjoy themselves.

To be young.

But whether fate believed that their youths had been over for long already, or it was mere chance, that night was the last night, those moments were the last moments, that they would enjoy peacefully for a long time.

For seconds later, the world seemed to implode in on itself.

The tent's topmost point caved in, and the material rushed down, a dark fluid that soon had everyone awash in a tangled, oppressive smog. People were screaming, thrashing and not a single person knew what was happening, where to go, what to think. The band had stopped, scattering from the middle into the throng of people, their instruments screeching feedback.

Naruto clutched tightly to Kira's hand. Kiba had grabbed Hinata and was already vaulting towards the entrance. Ino was staring blankly until Sakura and Chouji dragged her away, but Naruto started forwards, towards the center.

Kira wanted to go the other way, out, away from the screaming mass of bodies. She kept shouting at Naruto, asking him where he was going, but Naruto didn't hear a word above the din, even though she was so close. He'd seen something, seen it pierce the tent's structure, seen them descend together into confusion. He thought he'd recognized it, and wanted to see more.

"Where are we—" Kira was shouting, but stopped when someone knocked into her, driving the breath from her lungs and making her wheeze. Naruto stopped to, asking whether she was okay, his face close to hers, eyes wide, the memory of the moments before not forgotten by either of them.

"What are you doing?" she pressed. "Why don't we—"

"I wanna see something," he said. They were off again, before Kira could mount an argument.

Through the haze of tangled, thrashing forms and the oppressive night of the tent, they managed to reach the middle. A hole had been torn in the canvas, and in the center of that hole Naruto saw a wyvern in, panting and mewling weakly, its eyes glazed with exhaustion bordering on fatal, its wings limp and torn at its sides. Kira went towards it, hoping to help, but by the time she reached its side it had stopped moving altogether.

Kira stood up, thoroughly shaken and confused. "What—?"

Naruto looked around. People were streaming out from under the canvas, making it gradually deflate like a dying zeppelin, save for the ruined frames of the bleachers rising like mountains all around them. The canvas soon stopped moving, lying almost flat against the ground.

Save for one shape, which moved slowly towards Naruto and Kira from under the canvas. Naruto tensed, watching the form as it shuffled towards them. It emerged into the clear night seconds later, soon looming over both of them, the big green giant himself.

"EH?" Naruto blurted. "Golbarn?"

The orc shook his shaggy, tangled mane and stared at the two of them, amazed to find them so close.

"To think it would be this easy," he said. "You might make other things a bit easier sometimes, brat, but finding you is possibly the easiest thing in the world."

"What're you doing here?" Naruto asked, starting forwards.

"What am I doing?" Golbar, said, his face coiling with anger, not directed anywhere in particular. "I'm here to deliver a message from my liege, Lord Thrall."

Kira stepped forwards at this, a spark of joy shooting through her, despite the situation. "Thrall? What has he to say?"

"It's a figure of speech, in this case," Golbarn growled. "I haven't spoken with Lord Thrall in several months. I am simply saying what I believed he would say should he have been able to convey a message to me."

Everything seemed to be so quiet to Kira, then.

"Which is?"

"Help me."

* * *

I split the chapter in two, as I didn't think it'd be good to make it one, exceedingly long one. Those are a trial to read on computers, sometimes, I know.

Hope you guys enjoyed it, and yes, I know, I couldn't resist the rather obvious cliché of the Horseman, but I wanted a fight and I wanted the Horseman to be featured at some point, so why not now? Maybe it'll be back later, as well…?

Hope you guys enjoyed the chapters, and the new fic. I'm working on another chapter for it already. I'll keep going with this, though, as I'm getting my feet back with it. Hopefully it'll be back on par with what you guys expect. I didn't think the previous chapters were, in retrospect…

Talk to you soon!

General Grievous


	38. Problems

Disclaimer: The rights to this film have been purchased by Warner Bros. and no longer belong to me. Wait, that's not right…

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

* * *

Neera didn't like troll's blood potion, and she knew she'd suffer humiliation among her sisters for using it, but she didn't have any choice. Her wounds were too great. The poison was already eating away at her, like maggots at rotten flesh.

One week ago Golbarn had escaped, flying a borrowed wyvern across the ocean to the Eastern Kingdoms, and hopefully, to Naruto and Kira and help. One week ago they fought with the clay-modeling man and his twisted partner. One week ago they had learned the truth of Thrall's disappearance, since they had concocted the plan to escape.

Things had changed since, things that she wanted to tell Golbarn about—she hoped he was okay. Hopefully he made it across the sea. She didn't know if that was possible on a wyvern, it'd be too far, but maybe Golbarn could've done it. He seemed reliable enough, and even if he was an orc, he was honorable not to just abandon her here, to die in a gutter alone and away from her sisters and her people, thanks to a stinking monster who thought of himself as human, or perhaps was too human for her to even think of someone like that.

The alleyway was dark and was pungent with the stench of old compost not picked up in weeks from the inn behind her and excrement from the privy beside it. But there was no one else in the alley, which was more than she could say for most. Orgrimmar had become a city of beggars, without its Warchief to it. Businesses failed as merchants from all over were turned away at the gates, supplies had long ago been eaten away, the people were growing angry, mistrustful, and had begun to fight each other over food and shelter, and nobody was doing a thing to help it. Thrall would not appear, locked away in his hold.

Thrall would not save them, especially if it was from themselves.

She coughed and clutched at the burning wound in her stomach, and began to shiver as well, despite the dusty heat of the city. The poison was working too fast, and she could do nothing but keep it from killing her by using troll's blood, but even that wouldn't last too much longer. She was growing immune to its effects and her body couldn't take so much cell regeneration at once, and the poison was beginning to travel to parts that the potion would not affect; her brain, her spinal cord, her nervous system. Whatever poison it was, she doubted it was a common one. She could identify most of those. She'd gotten the poisoner, but there had been no relief in its defeat—who would relish a victory over a wooden doll?

She wouldn't, she knew. They had expected a fight, but when it had come neither had been prepared. That crazy bombing, clay-modeler jumped them just as Golbarn was about to leave. Him and his soft-speaking, masked partner all in black, chattering like a little boy. Despite that, he'd been strong and she hadn't been able to even touch him, as if he'd be made of air. Combine that with the sudden attack from a puppet who could control masses of iron sand that was seeped in poison, and they'd been overwhelmed. Golbarn had fled, at her word, but she'd stayed and fought until she'd defeated the puppet—just barely—by cutting it apart with her glaive, but she hadn't done much good against the bomber or his childish partner, so she had fled. They'd pursued her, probably, but they hadn't found her. She had her best friends the shadows to thank for that, who always hid her in a pinch.

Now, six days later, she was near dead, but still uncaught. It wouldn't last, though. Her only hope was that Golbarn had made it, and that he'd be bringing Naruto and an army to kill that monster who had taken up residence in the Warchief's hold.

She had been inside the keep for only a few moments before she'd been discovered, but it was enough. Only a glimpse of the attacker had been needed. Black cloak, red clouds, red hair and a boyish look. Thrall hadn't been there, on the throne in his proper place; only him.

They'd fled after that, organizing Golbarn's far-fetched trip across the ocean. Golbarn had no doubt that only a description of the enemy would tell them loads. Neera had heard as much from Lady Tyrande. But why they were here, and for what reason, still eluded them.

But, as she had already realized, it didn't really matter why.

Groaning, she sat up. Pain made her body disobey like a petulant child, and weak as an old woman. Sometimes she would pass out and then be awoken by a skull-splitting headache, and then she would shiver uncontrollably. Sometimes she tasted blood on her lips. Others, a coldness in her limbs and a feeling of lethargy that she knew if she gave in to, she would never get up again.

What surprised her was how she had not been found yet. She moved at night, slowly, no doubt looking like any other drunken waif wandering the streets of the Cleft. The cloak kept her covered. Unrest and starvation distracted others from taking a closer look.

She wondered what Orgrimmar had been like before this. Perhaps it had been a prospering city, but sometimes she found it hard to imagine what a city of orcs might be like when it was not disrupted by strike and a kidnapped leader. Once she wouldn't have cared less. She'd had an image of Orgrimmar as a giant bar-brawl, a constant battle over every little aspect of life; much of that had been proved when she'd first arrived, but when you were near-death from poison and unable to move more than a few feet at a time, you thought in different ways.

She couldn't deny the beauty of the city. It had no splendor to its streets, but it felt homely and even welcoming, when she really thought about it. And people talked. They wandered the streets and spoke and laughed with perfect strangers, and there didn't seem to be any barriers between the people. No reservation, no need for privacy.

Not like Darnassus. Elves were a private people, even among each other. Stormwind, she had heard, was even worse. Humans distrusted each other as much as they distrusted other races.

But it wasn't like that here. Even in the midst of famine and economic downfall, its people were banding together. Now that their Warchief had failed them, they had to change—and they were. She heard some of them, occasionally, in the streets—screaming for reform, telling all of them to pick up arms and march to Grommash Hold. If he will not listen, they shouted, then he has no right to rule us.

If he will not listen, she thought, then it's over.

Others marched through the streets as well, singing of past times: of the times before their arrival in this place, where they had known only prejudice and strife. We must return, they called, to the old world. Draenor—The Homeworld—awaits, they called.

There were tales that far to the south, there was a portal. A tear in the world, different from the Dark Portal they had arrived through. They would find it, and lead those who chose to follow to a world of everlasting peace.

To that, Neera had no answer. She had heard of the place where the orcs had their origins. They had come through in the Eastern Kingdoms, through a place long since ruined (supposedly) by Illidan Stormrage and his vile companions. There was no other way, though.

But people believed. They heard, and heeded the words. Some left the city, families with all their belongings, marching to the world of light and peace called Draenor, to a world where they would not know prejudice or hate, the place where they were meant to be. The Homeworld, they called it. They called it _exodus_, they called it salvation.

You will suffer, she heard them shout, but in the end, you will find yourself stronger for it. There will be no war there, they said, no Lich King, no humans and their vast greed and hatred, only orcs and only peace. There would be a life they were meant to lead—a life that they _deserved_. No more suffering, they chanted. No more.

Just follow, and we will lead.

Worse, others were blaming Thrall, not for his current situation, but for his past actions. He was a fool to bring us here. We have never known peace in this world, not once—we must flee and never return from this world of humans and their so-called righteous hate. There is no place for us in this world, we must return to our birthplace, our rightful place.

Every day, more left.

But even as they left, the remainder grew more hostile. They would gather in the Valley of Wisdom and scream threats and demand answers at the empty shell of Grommash Hold. Nobody would come, the doors would never open. It was still, and silent, like a headstone overlooking the city. Thrall's last reign for all the world to see.

She wondered when they would finally break, and assault it. When their anger outweighed their fear; their hunger outweighed their reason. They were afraid to, she knew. Few of them had a desire to rule a city, and even fewer the knowhow; and Thrall was powerful—if he still lived, he might not give it over to them. He might fight, and kill, and they did not want to die. There fear was increased by the dead orcs they found at the foot of the hold one morning. Fools who had entered seeking answers and paid with their lives. Their heads were smashed by something blunt and heavy.

Perfect for Thrall's Doomhammer.

Whispers told each other the truth. Thrall was abandoning them, mad with power, playing with their futures in a deadly game. Some said he had lost his will to live, and now just sat within his little world, waiting to die. A thousand reasons Neera heard every day. He was experimenting with fel power. He had gone insane. He worshipped new gods, not the ones of the elements, but the ones long before them. The Old Gods, the whisperers in the dark.

They shamed him. They spouted hatred, they had known all along that he would lead them to darkness. The Homeseekers, as they called themselves, took these whispers, grasping them like lifelines and bellowing to the populous that it was all the more reason they should leave.

Neera wanted to tell them. But to reveal herself now was to die. She had heard more than enough to know that these people would not believe in the alliance anymore than they did Thrall.

But it was perfect. He had them all in his grasp, and there was nothing to do but wait.

There was a time when elves did not fear death. Their lives were so long that it became a mystery to them as much as age. She had grown up with that sentiment, even though she knew elves were no longer immortal.

There was always time, she thought.

But not longer. Neera was afraid. Afraid to die, because it was so very close, whispering in her ear like an unseen enemy, calling for her. But she didn't want to go.

Please, she thought, they have to come.

She passed out, huddling against the pile of rotting food, praying to see Golbarn's face again.

----------------

"So that's their goal, is it then?" Jiraiya muttered, scratching his smooth chin. He was once again lost in his thoughts, staring nowhere in particular.

"Another war?" Naruto said, heatedly. "Why?"

"Freedom of movement, I don't doubt," Jiraiya said. He turned to Golbarn. "You say red hair? How old?"

"Young," the orc grunted. "Too young."

"It's him," Sakura hissed. Her fists were clenched, her eyes furious. "It has to be."

"The one you dealt with?" Kira asked.

Sakura nodded. "Sasori. The one who killed Chiyo-baa, her own grandson. It has to be him."

"Which means that if it is him, we can't expect Thrall to be of much help to us any longer," Jiraiya said. "From what I heard in your report, Sakura, he makes puppets out of people."

Sakura nodded.

"But then," Kira whispered, more to herself than anyone else. Her heart raced, and for a few moments she could hardly breathe as the implications took root in her thoughts, strangling the life out of all her plans. "Then, he's dead?"

"Worse," Sakura growled.

The Great Hall was dimly lit that morning, as dawn slowly crept in through the windows and the cold morning mist. Everyone was there—even Asuma and Kurenai. They all crowded around the table once used by the Stormwind Council, so long ago, and then the leaders of the world, though only once and at that moment, it seemed never again. Most were still dressed in their fayre finery, though Tenten, Neji and Shino were intensely hung-over and could hardly sit straight.

"It appears, then," Benedictus said, "that we have a situation."

"Very much so," Jiraiya grunted. "You want us to help, is that it?"

Golbarn answered at once. "That is what this alliance does, is it not? Help us."

"It isn't as simple as that. You said that people are already starting to leave Orgrimmar."

"Yes," the orc looked sick at the thought. "Fools who were eager to seize on any little fault that Lord Thrall committed—they always were there, just waiting—and this is without a doubt the greatest fault he could've committed in their eyes. Abandoning his people? If they were not afraid of his power, they could have already beheaded him, and abandoned the city to follow those fools to this fictional holy land they call the Homeworld."

"As I understand it," Benedictus said, "it is not fictional."

"Draenor—Outland, to some, is no holy land," Golbarn said. "It is a barren wasteland, no doubt by now, where the remainders of our clan fight in constant battle to satiate their disgusting need for battle and bloodshed. It has been like that since the days of Ner'zhul and Gul'dan."

"Do you know that?" Jiraiya asked.

"No," Golbarn admitted.

"Nobody does," Benedictus said, "which is exactly why people believe it."

"The Dark Portal has been closed for decades, yes, but they would have us believe that there is another, to the South, somewhere in the wastes near Gadgetzan, perhaps even in Un'Goro." Golbarn cracked his neck, and settled his arms on the table, staring furiously at the hard wood. "A fool's journey, no doubt, there is no such thing. If such a portal existed demons would have infested our world already, for that is all that is left in that place—demons." A grim smile split his face. "Metaphorical or otherwise."

"Yet people are still going," Jiraiya said, brow arched.

"Because they believe they have no other choice. They were abandoned once, and no doubt that is still fresh on their memory. For others, it is the persecution that is at the forefront of their reasoning." He looked sideways, at Kira. "Persecution brought on by your kind girl, despite what they have done for us, and what we have done for them. Stormwind looks deserted these days."

Kira nodded, slowly, misery in her eyes. "The fights grow worse, daily. But the orcs and tauren and trolls are not standing for it. They're leaving as well." She thought a moment. "I have reports that they aren't going across the seas, though. Some are going to the south, and some others are making their homes along the way."

"They have heard of Orgrimmar's situation, no doubt," Benedictus said. "Doubtlessly propagated by the very same people who are the cause of it."

"Jiraiya-sama," Kira said, looking hard at the man. "Please, tell me, who leads this group? What is his reasoning behind this? What wrong have I done them and their ilk? They are human like us, yet—" She knew her words had the ring of a naïve girl to them; Jiraiya couldn't possibly answer this or anything else about the group.

But she was so _angry_…what kind of people would do this to their own kind? Why would they try to derail something that would bring the world so much good?

With all her empathy, Kira couldn't sometimes understand the ways of her people. They often seemed alien and frightening, like a dark tunnel that might yield a fresh monster with every step. Humans seemed to have some drive to them that was not like other creatures. They had no desire to harmonize with the world. That was not their natural instinct. They wanted to control, to dominate, to _rule_ the world around them in every fashion.

Why?

But Jiraiya seemed to understand, and nodded. "I know nothing, but I can tell you this. Whoever leads them is somebody who seems to want more than anything to control. In that respect, he's like a conqueror. What he's doing now is simply removing the oppositions. No doubt, he considers the other big contenders in this world to be similar oppositions."

"Even the Lich King, then?" That thought brought her no comfort. Akatsuki had already demonstrated they were no "enemy of her enemy".

"Most likely. Why they deem your goal more important and pressing than disposing of an immortal monster like him, I couldn't say."

"That's easy, isn't it?" Naruto's voice was edged with the anger that he called forth whenever a friend was in trouble. He was tense, but seemed calmer than he ever had in this situation. "They think we're stronger. If Kira-chan's alliance works out, not even they will be able to stand against it. They're afraid."

"Maybe," said Jiraiya. "But there's another reason, and if we're dealing with the kind of person I think we're dealing with, fear has nothing to do with it. It's all about logic. Destroying Kira's dream is about as easy as ruining a puzzle—you just remove one piece and the it'll never be complete." He stood up, and began to pace, stroking his chin and scowling at the ground.

"What they're doing is akin to throwing a penny into a crowd of beggars. Except the penny is distrust, and we're all looking for a healthy amount of distrust—anything to make sure we don't have to work with _those _monsters…." He looked at Golbarn. "Your people are the same. We were all looking for a reason."

"Because hope is too much, and too disappointing when it is dashed upon the rocks," Benedictus said, with a sigh.

"There's been too much of that lately," grunted Jiraiya.

Golbarn stared at Jiraiya for some time, his grim black eyes coursing with silent rage, his face fighting to calm itself enough to speak. He was not angry with the man, just furious that it was not all so simple as he had hoped it might be.

He'll help. It had been the foremost thought in Golbarn's mind since he had left Orgrimmar. He'll definitely help. It will not be long.

But they were talking.

Golbarn never liked to rush in—he hated it, in fact. And he knew that this situation needed talk, and careful consideration; it could not be handled foolishly. But every day there was a chance that Lord Thrall would emerge and lead his remaining people to war against the world. Every day, there was a chance that his former supporters would storm the hold and rend him to pieces, and then kill themselves in an attempt to gain control.

Grom Hellscream had once saved them from the bloodrage that had consumed their fel brethren in Draenor. Maybe that wasn't right. Maybe it was still in all of them. He could feel something now, growing furiously within him, shouting at everything and raging to get its way. Maybe it'd always been there.

Act, act, act! _No more talking!_

He stood up, quickly, making a few of the shinobi jump and stare at him warily. He stomped away from his seat, and made a slow, deliberate circuit of the room, grinding his teeth as they jabbered away, and he didn't really see anything as he walked. There was a red haze about him, fighting for control.

Stop, he thought to himself. What is wrong with you?

He did, finally, but only because something blocked his path.

The boy.

He was tiny, compared to Golbarn. Short, well-built but still looking a bit too childish to be called a real man. Golden hair flyaway about his face. Blue eyes like nothing he'd ever seen.

"I don't care…" Naruto said, very slowly as he stared at Golbarn, in a manner that made him feel almost of equal height with the boy, perhaps even lower and smaller. "I don't care what those old bastards think. We're going to help."

"Brat, don't just decide—" Jiraiya began, but Naruto cut him off. His voice was boiling but commanding, not like anything he'd heard from the boy before. No petulance, no childishness to it. Jiraiya was silenced, but only out of slight awe and a sudden feeling of nostalgia.

It's them, he thought, wildly. Speaking at once, as they often had, but with a new voice.

"Just sit down," Naruto told the raging orc, a creature so large it could've pulped his head in one blow. "Or I'll kick your ass. You were always one to tell me that I act too rashly, so don't do anything stupid, stupid."

He whirled, and before Golbarn could say anything, Naruto walked from the room. He stopped just before he left, turning to the others.

"I'm going to call Matthias. You guys get ready, okay? We gotta get planning. We don't have Shikamaru with us, so we gotta all help put this together." He nodded once, for emphasis, without his usual smile.

Then he was gone. The chirps of birds soon overcame the dwindling echo of the door's slam, as if perfectly okay with the odd occurrence, and the rest of the sounds of a normal day followed, as if nothing were amiss. But the room was still and silent as it had never been before.

"W-what the hell was that?" Sakura whispered, though everyone heard it in the silence.

Jiraiya closed his mouth, and swallowed the drool that had collected. He laughed, and shook his head. "It was like the past," he said to himself. He went to the door as well. "Well, you heard him. Get ready. Looks like you guys are heading off whenever the zeppelin guy arrives."

-------------

Matthias arrived within the hour, complaining heavily as he entered the castle gates about never making any money because he never was able to complete his jobs any more, thanks to stupid blonde kids who didn't even play cards with him any more.

"I'll have time now," Naruto said, frowning. "We're heading on a pretty long trip."

"Oh?" The dark-haired smuggler grinned at the news. "Where?"

"To Orgrimmar."

The man whistled, looking dubious. "Not heard good things from there, these days, least of all for zeppelins. Heard a goblin zeppelin was taken down just outside the city—blown all over the place, nothing but bits and bobs left. Not looking to have the same done to me."

"I thought you were the best zeppelineer ever?" Naruto said, raising an eyebrow.

"Did I say that? Heat of the moment, I should think. But I'll take you. You owe me, though." He turned, and bowed to Kira, as if just noticing she was there. "Forgive me, milady, I never remember my manners."

"I'd be surprised if you did," Kira said, smiling, and giving the man a similar bow.

"What a wound," the smuggler said, grinning. He nodded to Sakura as well, who stood just behind Naruto. The girl smiled back, but seemed distracted. He glanced at the others, all standing behind Naruto, and the image seemed almost natural. He smiled and turned around, addressing Naruto again.

"Say goodbye to your princess, boy, and meet me up in my cabin for some cards. By the time we ship off, you can be sure I'll have won a hand."

"Bah," Naruto said, waving a hand dismissively. "You say that, but with your old man eyes, you'll probably mistake a jack for a jester."

"Kids these days, what wounds they give! Teach your servant some manners, milady!" Matthias' laugh went with him up the gangplank. Naruto blew a raspberry after him.

"Naruto," Kira said, when Matthias had gone and Naruto's temporary childishness had subsided. "Please be careful." They were stupidly obvious words, but she couldn't think of anything else. But he didn't notice, or even care, and just grinned in a more familiar way, puffing his chest out.

"I always am!" He thumbed his jacket, nodding to himself. "I have a new sword." He didn't even care to think that he had no idea how to use it. It was much bigger than his previous one, not suited at all to defense.

"That you barely know how to use," Sakura said, rolling her eyes, but her voice was playful, summery light. She didn't want this to be harder than it had to be. "Hope everything goes well here."

"I do as well." Kira sounded nervous. She didn't like to think that she'd have to spend more time with the Jashin priest's head to get more information on Akatsuki. Perhaps he'd be more lenient. "You be careful as well, Sakura."

The kunoichi nodded, something grim forming in her face. "Dunno if I can promise that, but I'll be back alive." If it was _him_ though, she couldn't even count on that.

"I'll have to settle for that, I suppose," Kira said, giving the girl a brief hug before moving on to Naruto, which lasted a noticeable few seconds longer, long enough for her to whisper something and then break away. The boy stared at her, and then nodded.

They went up the gangplank, leaving Kira, Benedictus, Sai, Yamato and Jiraiya standing on the ground, watching them. The sun hit their eyes so their faces were scrunched and bright but all held a similar feeling as they watched the zeppelin begin to rise, bathing their faces in shadow and tangling their hair with wind, into the cold autumn sky and towards that crushing unknown that none of them wanted to face.

---------------

"Something's wrong."

It was the _smell_. It invaded her nostrils, much clearer to her than to any of them, even if they wouldn't reach the town for a few more minutes at a constant run. They stopped, perching on the tall branches of a thick conifer, waiting as she delicately sniffed the air and recoiled again, and her hound whimpered pathetically from a lower branch.

"What is it?" Izumo frowned at her, annoyed by her tone, as always. He didn't like Hana much—she was too brash and bossy for his tastes, even if she was rather attractive.

"Some smell," she muttered. "Hell, it stinks. It's like rot, only a hundred times more powerful." She sniffed the air, and the recoiled. "I can hardly bear it. It makes me wanna vomit." She looked down at Kuromaru. "You smell it too, boy?"

The wolf whimpered in response, and edged back in the direction they came, his lips peeled back in half snarl even if he made no sounds of it. He was usually so decisive, yet now he hovered half between going on and half between stumbling back to the kennels to suckle at his mother's tits again, like he'd done when she'd first started training him.

"You'll have to," Kotetsu said. "We're about there. We just need to get the info from this informant of Jiraiya-sama and head home. No point in staying much longer."

"Where's our friend?" Izumo asked, glancing around.

"Somewhere," Hana grunted. If there was ever such a thing as _too_ nice, it was him. She despised nice guys. They were so fake. And the smell was making her faint as well, and she had no patience to deal with people she didn't like. "Let's press on. I wanna find out what's making this stink and get rid of it."

They went on, slower and slower as the neared the village, not only because they didn't want to draw more attention than was necessary, but because Hana was becoming nearer and nearer to being sick with each branch they reached; the smell invaded her mouth now, making her taste rot and dry her throat like the inside of a tomb and each step was like having it forced down her throat.

The village unveiled itself within the confines of the forest—tiny and insignificant, home to only woodsmen, a few merchants, an inn and a somewhat famous steakhouse for travelers going towards the Wave Country. It was built among the trees, not inside a clearing, so when they arrived it took them a few minutes to realize that there was no one around, and it was as silent as a skeletal forest long stripped of life.

"Wha—?" Izumo began, but both Kotetsu and Hana stopped him with withering glares.

'No talking' Hana signed to him, hardly even taking the time to look at him as she was so blinded by the smell. 'Make no sound.'

With a few more complicated hand gestures, Hana directed Izumo and Kotetsu to skirt the perimeter, and look for signs of life. She saw their other companion in due time, moving up with casual silence for something of his size behind her, a hulking mass of muscle and glittering skin that made her so damned on edge around him, even when he had that confident and reassuring smile—the kind that superheroes in manga had when they were saving the damsel in distress. She told him to stay put, before she pressed on into the center. The smell got stronger, but it was in no place particular. It hung in the air like fog, draping everything like the moisture after a light rain. In some places it was like a liquid itself, and it made her gag, weak, careless—and somehow, even a little afraid.

It maddened her. She suppressed it as best she could, but it was hard, she wasn't used to not smelling things. Kuromaru was stumbling after her, and it made her nervous to keep him along.

"You okay?" she whispered, on her stomach on the roof of a thatched house.

Kuromaru whimpered. She bit her lip, and stroked him kindly, but her stomach almost turned with each movement so she stopped eventually and took a few deep breaths.

Some sort of _jutsu_, she wondered? She did a _kai_ just to be sure, but it yielded nothing. It did not smell of _chakra_ at all. It was just dead.

A quick sweep brought out nothing. Everyone was gone, but the smell was everywhere.

'Maybe that's the reason?' Kotetsu signed, when they met up again. 'Did you find the informant?'

'He's not there either,' she signed back. The inn she'd have met him or her was empty, smelling only faintly less then the rest of the village, for which she had spent a grateful five minutes within, scantly recovering before wading back into the invisible cloud of rot. 'Where the hell is everyone?'

'Shall we make another sweep, see if we've missed anything?' Izumo was frowning at the village, and it made his smooth, boyish face look petulant and not at all serious. He'd had that problem forever.

Hana slowly nodded. 'Sure. I'll do the border sweep with Kuromaru this time, you take," she nodded in the direction of the giant behind them, still not quite sure how to pronounce his name, "_him_, and head through the center.'

"_I do not like this."_ It was the first time their guest had spoken since they had arrived at the village, and his voice carried—annoyingly—on the wind, reverberating through the trees and as blatantly obvious as a light being shined at night.

"Find me somebody who does, and I'll believe anything," Hana whispered. "Move. And don't talk again, you'll give us away."

The being nodded briskly, though he hardly understood, and then followed Izumo and Kotetsu at a deadened, heavy run that was completely silent. Hana watched them go, and then slowly began to skirt the village, using the trees as cover and as transport. Kuromaru followed, but reluctantly. She watched and sniffed (barely) and kept running. It was when she was passing the northern portion of the village that she spotted something and had to stop.

It was gone when she stopped, and she thought her eyes had played her false. It had looked like, but why then would they…?

A trap? She suddenly looked all around, her eyes narrowing, her nostrils flared. What kind of trap was this? Had Jiraiya's informant been discovered? Had they sold out to the Sound or Akatsuki or any of the other bands of missing-nin that haunted the many countries bordering the Five?

It didn't matter. She looked at Kuromaru and nodded, and the wolf—looking grateful—howled.

The sound echoed throughout the village, and she saw Izumo and Kotetsu's answer, which was flung into the air a moment later, a bright flash that briefly cast the village in black and white; in those few seconds Hana saw them move, and when it was over she still couldn't quite believe what was happening, or that she was in more danger than she had ever realized.

Kuromaru yelped and backed off, all his training failing utterly as they approached in wailing ferocity, moving almost soundlessly but with the ferocity of wolves hungrier than himself. Hana backed away, drawing out a kunai and an attached explosive note and throwing it into the thick of them.

The explosion destroyed several of them, but the rest didn't seem to hear it. They charged on, straight at Hana and her loyal Kuromaru, and for the first time since she'd first met a snarling mad dog in an alleyway in Konoha, she felt afraid for herself.

No. Utterly terrified.

She broke and ran, Kuromaru fast at her heels, the things behind them, closing in, grasping and snarling and moaning, like humans only worse, bones and flesh and death given life. She leapt into the trees, and they tried to follow, skittering up the trunk like insects, their claws biting the flesh of the tree and tearing with each step. Destroying, ruining, violating.

Frantic, she leapt further into the forest. She heard a cry behind her—human and male—and glanced back, eyes widening when she saw Kotetsu struggling among them, his kunai flashing and cutting and spilling ichor that bled black and green across the ground, Izumo by his side with some sort of giant mace. She couldn't see the creature that had followed them, but heard it a moment later as the ground cracked open and dozens of the things fell into oblivion.

But there were too many. More came, more and more and more, so many that they couldn't have just been the villagers—for most were dressed like that, but some were just naked and some were even less than that. Kotetsu was making a run for it, Izumo behind him, but then something more than all the rest arrived—seeping from the forest like the shadows of night, and both Izumo and Kotetsu had to flail back at this new threat which Hana couldn't see, only feel, because she couldn't stay. A fear that she wouldn't ever be able to explain seized her, forced her, and she ran with her tail between her legs, tears streaming from her eyes. She ran and leapt and ran until she couldn't hear their moans any more or smell their awful, rotting stench.

Until Izumo and Kotetsu's screams were the only thing she heard, all the way back to Konoha.

----------------

High above the sprawling, dirty city that Deidara would have liked nothing more than to carve out of the face of the earth as it so richly deserved, it was so easy to see everything that he needed to. The world was like a canvas, and if he were a painter he would've delighted in chucking a bucket of red on the whole lot of it. It was maddening to see such stability, because from where he was, there was nothing so stable, so unchanging, as a city skyline.

He hated it.

Even though he knew chaos reigned within the tiny city below, even though he knew that if he went down and saw it all it'd be enough to satisfy most of his morbid fantasies for at least a few days, even though he knew the vast flux that Sasori had set in motion within the once stable and prosperous city was growing ever more violent with the minute and the hour, Deidara could not see it. He could not see the Art of the World that he so craved, that unchanging, ever-increasing _chaos_; that meaningless flight of emotion and fancy that took the world in periods and then dashed it all on the ground, that beauty that since he was very young he had been fascinated with.

Everything up here was still, the only sound the eternal wind rushing by his ears, the only voice his own and that of Sasori's new, and most annoying, partner: Tobi.

"Hey, Deidara-san," Tobi had said a few hours earlier, gazing down at the little city. "They're like ants, ne? We could just crush them like ants, I bet…" Sometimes, the most ridiculous fancies took Tobi, and he always felt compelled to voice them. He was like a child newly born, and Deidara hated children.

"Shut up," he'd always say, just like Sasori had always said to him. What gave him the right to do that, anyways? He'd been stronger, but more arrogant, vain, never careful like Kakuzu or Itachi, but that didn't give him the right to say shut up to him, did it? He hadn't been that annoying, either, right? At least he always was awake. Tobi just fell asleep all the time.

But then again, he couldn't sleep even if he wanted to. He didn't sleep. He didn't eat. He didn't enjoy that lusty, vibrant _life_ that had so taken his kind since their birth as squalling babes.

What was he now?

Eternal.

Nothing.

He was like Sasori now, and he couldn't even do anything about it. He was like Hidan and Kakuzu—so desperately clinging to what _life_ they could be said to have. He wasn't human, and if he wasn't human than what point was there in anything, really?

Life had been so much simpler when he had been human, so much more fleeting and rushed. It'd been life. How could there be life in life that didn't end? How could there? Where was the urgency, the fuel to drive? Where was it, it was nothing with out it!

He clenched his fist, slowly though because if he did it quickly Sasori might think something was up. He didn't want the puppet master knowing more than he needed to. Once he had respected Sasori for following his vision until it's perfectly logical conclusion. He still did, but it was like the respect one had for a dictator who did great and terrible things to his country, one who ruled efficiently and ruthlessly. It was not the respect of a fellow artist.

How could this be art?

He finally realized what Sasori had always been talking about. Art, art, art! Sasori had never acknowledged Deidara's art, but Deidara had grudgingly accepted his. But now that he was Sasori's art, he saw that it was nothing but eternity and the epitome of how stupid humanity had become. Eternity was boring, and he hadn't even lived it out yet.

"Ne, Deidara-sempai," Tobi said, his voice carrying despite the annoying and ever-flowing wind.

"What?" Deidara barked. He never liked to talk anymore, either. He had once liked to talk! To joke, to laugh! What point was there now? He had all the time in the world!

"Why do you think the world is how it is?"

Deidara raised an eyebrow. "I don't particularly care." Perhaps he should. He had the time to care now.

"Come on," the childish man said, giggling behind his strange, spiraled mask. "You gotta have somethin' to say about it?"

"I don't know," D'eidara said, truthfully. "I always thought it was a sculptor who did it."

"A sculptor? 'Caus''e you're one, sempai?"

Deidara didn't answer for a while, as if hoping he'd here some change in the wind, but there was none, so he said, "Not really. I began to think about it after I became a sculptor. It fit."

"What did?"

"The way the world was made, the way life went on. Only a sculptor could have such visions, such ideas of reality and the means to construct every fine detail, every little aspect of a world while at the same time keeping everything that it represents so palpable and obvious that at first people don't even notice what it is. It's so obvious that most people go their whole lives without seeing it, or realizing that it's there."

"That what's there?"

Deidara ignored the question, and continued. "Sasori's not a sculptor. He doesn't construct things, he just makes them move—a poor imitation. A sculptor can make things move even without making them actually move. He can make things appear towering, or tiny as a rat, using the same amount of stone or clay. A sculptor makes life and treasures it because he knows that life is so fleeting and pointless that in order to _truly _see it, you must capture it in a form that may last just a little bit longer, so that in the future there will be others who see that emotion and feel inspired to make their own emotions with it. The world is a piece of art, made by a sculptor, meant only to generate a series of fleeting emotions—beauty, love, joy, even sadness, pain, anger—and it will soon drift by as all sculptures do."

"But sculptures last," Tobi pointed out. "There're some really old ones in Konoha, you know—"

"Sculptures last, but their emotions do not. They change, they mean different things to different people, they are never concrete and never ever the same. Sasori wants eternity. I wanted to make a piece of art that lasts but a fleeting instant—the very instant that emotion is grounded in reality, even if that emotion is fear or anger or pain. I wanted to make something true and real, I wanted to be different from other sculptors—different from the sculptor who made this world because I realize that his intention in creating it was never to capture fleeting emotions—but to make them endure and last, even when that's not the case."

Tobi was very quiet as he watched Deidara, who fell cold and silent as he watched the endless see of red and tan below him. One time he might've gotten angry, he would've been furious at everything, but there was nothing but cold inside him now. He couldn't even laugh anymore.

"I don't get it," Tobi said, with a shrug.

Deidara grunted. He hadn't expected him to.

"Man, how long are we supposed to be up here? When did Sasori-sempai say we could come down?" Tobi said, lying back so that he faced the sky again, which seemed so close now. Deidara hated above even more than below. Only when it was twilight did he ever care to look up. Night and day bored him.

"Whenever he orders us too."

"You take his orders now?" Tobi asked, cocking his head slightly to the side. "I liked the old Deidara-sempai better. He was more cheerful."

"He was, wasn't he?" Deidara said. "I liked him better too."

Tobi stared at him a while, and then sat up, and turned his head slightly to stare off into the distance. His head cocked again. He seemed to be listening.

"I think someone's coming."

Deidara glanced in that direction. His optic camera zoomed in a little, until he could indeed see something, far in the distance, slowly makings its way towards them and the city.

He frowned. Perhaps this was it, then? Sasori was right, they would send people—even if was just that Kyuubi-kid and his little friends. Perhaps letting the orc go hadn't been such a bad idea.

He felt a stirring somewhere. Maybe—maybe something was…no, it was gone. He stared dispassionately into the sky.

"Perhaps this won't be boring," he said aloud.

"Hopefully," Tobi said, and it seemed to Deidara that he was smiling.

Odd. Despite Tobi's natural cheerfulness, Deidara could not picture what it'd be like if he could smile.

It was an unnerving thought.

* * *

Can't say much about why I'm so late with this chapter—third year of University is a bitch, and well, that's my excuse.

Things are getting heated up, though now…I think I might enjoy writing the next chapter more…

Hope you all forgive me for my lateness!

See you soon (hopefully)

General Grievous


	39. Return to Orgrimmar

Disclaimer: _Do you expect me to talk?_

_No, I expect World of Warcraft and Naruto to become mine!_

_Fool…it will never happen!_

_Then I expect you to die!_

Here's the next installment of _The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!_

_

* * *

_

Below the deck of Matthias' creaking old zeppelin Golbarn sat alone in his room, staring at nothing but his own two hands.

They were big and green, hard and strong and lined with scars and bony calluses from all the swordplay he did, the fingers thick as kodo sausages tipped with clawed nails that he could use in a pinch if his blade abandoned him (for, what were they if not natural blades?) The knuckles, hard and worn and rock-like, which could break bones as easily as bread.

He scowled at himself, scowled at his hands. He could count the fresh scars.

Was he a fool?

He ought to be disgusted with himself; he ought to feel violated and ashamed—did that mean he was a fool, or a psychopath? For, who but a fool or a psychopath would even consider the feelings of something that his people had warred against for generations, these flighty creatures who were governed by their females and treated life as infinite and boring. Beings who had more in common with trees than with him. Creatures that had not endured suffering but only comfort and longevity, growing so used to life that some of them would never be able to give it up.

And yet he still cared for one.

He started up, the rage heating up again. Why did he care? What was it that drove him? It was not for his lord, not for Warchief Thrall, that he knew. The Warchief had always been like a god to him, ever since his youth. Nothing could stop a juggernaut like Lord Thrall, not even this. He'd find some way out, some way to stop it. So why had Golbarn lied to the boy about his reasons for going, about his urgency, when in his heart and soul he would never believe that Thrall could be contained?

Her.

Why her?

She meant something to him, something he didn't understand. It wasn't romantic love; nothing that pointless or fragile. It meant something more, and he didn't know why. The time he'd spent with her seemed negligible: a meeting, a few days of creeping through the alleys of Orgrimmar, and a battle that had lasted all of fifteen minutes from beginning to end, with him fleeing in disgrace to warn a bunch of humans that against his better judgment he still believed could help. But he had fought alongside her before and it hadn't resulted in this feeling.

He remembered her face so well in those final few moments. It was not a look he was accustomed to having directed at him, especially from an elf. It looked wrong to him, and he hadn't quite understood it until he'd thought about it, until he'd compared it to the faces of fallen allies. It was curious that it was the same. Why did a night elf's face look so similar to an orc's? Why was that expression the same?

And why did she trust him so much?

Was this what the boy felt? Once he thought he'd understood the boy, but he really didn't. Was this what made the boy fight so fiercely, for creatures that did not mean anything to him, for people who had scorned him, made him endure pains and horrors far worse than anything that he would've experienced otherwise? Did the boy see what Golbarn had only just seen, did the boy see that same thing in every race that existed, despite their differences?

It must be.

He sat back down again, and looked once more at his hands. Though brutal, scarred, hard and huge, they were strong too, and warm. He closed them, looked at all of them, and marveled a little.

Strong.

They could protect her. Defeat her enemies. Rescue her. They could rescue a friend.

The word had never applied to anything until now. Allies were one thing. A friend was something so much more. She was no longer a night elf, not really. The bonds had been broken, the histories forgotten.

They were friends.

Friends that he'd protect.

Or die.

-------

Neera was about to die.

She stumbled through the alleyways, sweat running down her face into her eyes, blinding her, making the world as jumbled, chaotic and restless as she felt, darkening the alleyways, blurring the figures of drunks and trash piles until they were indistinguishable from each other, making the world tilt, swivel and distort with each step, each breath.

He's coming he's coming he's coming, where, where, WHERE? She stumbled around, staring wildly. She slipped and landed in a pile of trash—or a drunk, they both smelled the same at any rate, and were about as useful as each other, especially if they were _fucking orcs_. She got up, spitting, her mouth full of rotting meat and stinking as bad as any bum, furious at her foolishness. She couldn't afford to slip now, not when he was _right there!_

She turned and ran, or tried to, but her legs were weak and like jelly, and when she looked down they wiggled and made funny sounds, and abruptly her anger and desperation turned to amusement as she kicked her legs out, watching them dance like worms, until she kicked both at the same time, forgetting that she still subscribed to most of the world's natural laws, and fell in a heap near the trash again. The anger returned, and she cursed the drunk for tripping her and would've killed him before she realized he'd come even closer than before, and then her fear and desperation took over her, drove her back deeper into the alleyway, stumbling as fast as she could.

She hooked around a corner and saw Teldrassil in the distance, and sighed in relief and rushed towards it. She ran into a wall, nearly breaking her nose, and the tree sang with laughter at her foolishness and told her she was going the wrong way.

She turned and started back, but Teldrassil was gone.

He was back.

Neera screamed, horrified, backing away up until she hit the wall. She tried to keep going, but there was nowhere to go to, so she stood up and told him to fuck off and leave her alone, she had better things to do that listen to a fucking tree who didn't even look like a tree anyways!

Where were they?

She looked around, suddenly feeling that they were close. She looked up, saw them, and pointed at the figure.

"GET HIM!"

They didn't move. Naruto smiled and shook his head, laughing a little before wandering off. Lady Shandris asked her to wash her hands. Lady Tyrande was busy on the toilet and was studiously ignoring Neera. Kira was singing somewhere, but Neera couldn't see her, only hear her sweet voice, tantalizing, beautiful but singing of things that Neera didn't understand, or would never have.

All the while he walked closer, with that little smile of his, the glassy doll-eyes, the milky-smooth face. He didn't speak, no taunting here. Just silent, clickety-clacking like a puppet dancing before a crowd, a caricature of a man, with only a human smile and those unsympathetic, greedy, glassy eyes.

The eyes of a man.

Neera curled up, now crying again, wondering why they weren't coming down to help her, wondering why the world was like this, wondering why, oh why, she had become friends with humans and orcs and trolls, when she had always been told not to.

"_The black Horde came, and the world was from then on shadow."_

So it was true, she thought, as he stopped over her again, all mist and shadows, still smiling but no longer really there, still clickety-clacking, but ever more silently.

The world would always be shadow.

She began to laugh, even as the spectre faded away and the silence of the alley overcame her once again.

------

"That back there, Naruto…" The wind almost whipped Sakura's words away, but Naruto just barely caught them before they soared past into the great blue. He glanced at her, flushing unconsciously, finding her green eyes regarding him intensely.

"Yeah?"

"You were pretty surprising." The note of approval, Naruto noticed, felt a little different and he wondered what else she meant by it. He decided not to pry, and just shrugged.

"I suppose," he said. He hadn't really thought about it, as he often did. Though he thought more nowadays in general, he hardly felt justified in thinking much about this outburst as compared to all the rest he'd had in his life. He felt a little foolish for doing it, but he didn't regret it.

"Seriously," she said, raising an eyebrow and leaning a bit closer, reminding Naruto of her scent and the softness of her lips. "I mean, you've had self-righteous and rather wise outbursts before, but that was different."

"How?" he said, blushing.

"You sounded," she fought for words, frowning for a moment, and then: "Cool. Like someone who knew exactly what to do, exactly what the situation called for. Before you sounded like a bratty kid who hit the nail on the head where the situation was concerned through sheer accident of words…"

"Thanks," Naruto mumbled, though it was sort of true that when he had yelled, he hadn't really known what was going to result of it, he'd just spoken what he'd felt, what was in his heart. This time had been different—by just a little—but different enough for him to realize that he'd said something that hadn't fallen on deaf ears.

"But seriously," Sakura said again, her smile playfully light, her eyes shining with something like approval. "It was really amazing. You sounded like a totally different person, as if a Hokage had possessed your body for a few moments and had spoken for you."

"I kind of just said stuff," he said, with a shrug. "What I felt, but I guess I said it in a way that was different from normal. I've heard Kira-chan speak like it a lot, you know, and all the other leaders too. They're good at telling people what to do…really good."

"You are as well, it seems."

He blushed a little harder this time, but couldn't stop himself from grinning at her praise. It happened so rarely—though more and more these days—that he couldn't help it. He shrugged again and let his eyes get swept back into the view of the sky, and they were both quiet for a time. Calm spread throughout his chest and he relaxed, feeling as light as the air that surrounded them, and as strong as the wind that blew past them, sweeping his and her hair like flowing liquid and tearing passionately at their clothes.

"Sakura-chan…" he said finally, and glancing at her and finding that she hadn't once looked away. "Erm…"

"What?"

"About the other night…"

"Ah," she said, shrugging. "Don't worry about it."

"Eh?"

"It was just an experiment."

"Experiment?"

"Yeah. I wanted to see what it was like."

He blinked, and waited, feeling a little confused but also a little hopeful. "What was it like?"

She grinned at him in that annoying way that girls did when they had a secret to tell, but wouldn't do under pain of death. "You probably already know the answer."

"Do not."

"It's the same as yours, probably."

He blushed. "That good, then?"

She shrugged. "Yep."

"Ah," he said, and turned again to avoid being seen with such a red face. "Good."

"Did you kiss Kira?"

Why do girls always go for the hard questions?

"…Yeah." He shifted a little, feeling a little guilty for some reason. He'd kissed her first after all, and that was unspoken agreement, wasn't it? He wondered if she'd hit him, or if she'd do something worse, like cry and glare at him or—

"Good."

Again, he blinked. "W-what was that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Good. I'm glad you didn't mess that up or anything."

"Whaddya mean?"

"She really likes you," Sakura said. "Really, really likes you. That was probably the last chance you'd get for a while to be totally normal with her, or even with her at all…and you made it memorable for her as well."

"Memorable?" He parroted. "You're not angry?"

She smiled a little. "Kind of, but that's not really the point. I can't be angry especially since both me and her have an agreement that I think we both intend to uphold."

"Agreement?"

The smile appeared again, but this time she said nothing. Still confused, but nonetheless relieved she wasn't upset, Naruto dropped the subject. He might not understand girls, but life would be extremely boring without them.

"Do you think Kakashi-sensei is on his way back now?" Sakura asked, following Naruto's eyes into the blue.

"He might be," Naruto said, with a shrug. "I'm betting he's gonna be late, though, since he's late to everything."

"Probably," she said, laughing. "I do wish I'd been there, though…"

"At Gai-sensei's funeral?"

"Mm."

"Yeah," Naruto said, quietly. "But I've had enough of those for one lifetime."

She smiled, and nodded a little. "I suppose. He was really amazing, Gai-sensei. I hope Lee-kun is okay now…"

"Fuzzy brows'll be fine," Naruto said, nodding to himself. "He's strong." He was a hard-worker like Naruto. He knew how to take pain and loss, because he'd dealt with it before. "I wonder what Kakashi-sensei told him about Gai-sensei though."

"Probably a lot. I don't think Gai-sensei gave away much of his past."

"It'd be interesting to hear about it…"

"Yeah."

Another pause.

"Do you think Sai, Yamato-sensei and Ero-sennin will find anything at Dalaran?" The word sounded funny to him, and it was strangely difficult to pronounce despite being in a language quite close to his own. The three of them had said that they'd make for the walled-off city to see what they could turn up about Akatsuki. Jiraiya had already sent a toad back to Gnomeregan with an update on their current activities.

"Hard to say," Sakura said. "If they do, it might simply be a group of angry mages. Kira-chan told me a lot about them."

"Did she?"

"I've read something of them as well. Some of the most powerful people in the world were among their ranks. If Akatsuki somehow is working with them, or has taken them over…"

"Then they're much stronger than we thought."

"Yeah," she said. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "But I already knew that."

Naruto glanced at her. He knew what had happened in the cave when they'd been attempting to rescue Gaara, but she hadn't spoken much of it. Whatever horrors this Sasori had conjured up it was enough to make Sakura bold enough to take him on, but terrified of his power. She didn't speak of it but her eyes grew erratic when she spoke of the experience.

"We're both gonna be there, you know," he said. "Don't be like me."

"Like you?"

"Rush in and get your ass kicked. It happens to me a lot…" He scratched his head and gave her a foolish smile. She smiled a little back, and seemed to calm down a little, for her eyes grew softer and her smile less forced.

"I won't be that stupid," she said, and her eyes smiled a little more. He almost sighed in relief.

"Good," said Naruto, nodding automatically, settling the matter and bringing silence upon them for a time again.

"Is Tsuwabuki alright?" Sakura asked.

He thought for a second. "Yeah, fine. Getting her ears scratched."

"You don't take her much on trips."

"To be honest, I don't like to," Naruto said, quietly. "She knows that, too. I like having somebody back that I can contact when I want that's near Kira. And it's hard to fight with her sometimes, she's really got a mind of her own. We're not that much like Kiba and Akamaru, you could say."

"I've noticed," Sakura said, smiling. "She's as independent as any fox should be."

He nodded. "It works, though. I fight better on my own, most of the time."

"And she doesn't like fighting much, does she?"

"Not particularly," Naruto said. "She enjoys sitting around, getting pampered more." He grinned. "It's good, 'cause I can experience some of it as well."

Squatting suddenly, Naruto sighed. "It's pretty cold out here."

"Yeah," she said. "Wanna go inside?"

"I do," he mumbled, "but that's the problem."

"What is?"

"If I go inside, I'm gonna have to play cards with Matthias again. I don't like it. He cheats."

"You're just bad at cards." She smirked.

"Am not!"

"Your brain's too small." She laughed, impishly, as he looked crestfallen in mock despair, and laughed even harder when a strong gust of wind knocked him on his side and a sudden lurching of the zeppelin made him smack against the railing.

She stopped laughing when the zeppelin gave a dangerous tilt, swinging so far that Naruto nearly slid off the edge.

---------

There's no way we can do it, Shikamaru thought, for the thousandth time that day. There's no way we can tell.

And there wasn't. Any number of factors could be at play here. In some respects it was like shogi, only you didn't know which pieces your opponent held, or even how many pieces he might have. There could be countless numbers of them—the entire Council could be a part of it; or there could be just one, and that'd be just as hard. Magni's advisors had numbered in the hundreds at one point—he'd had no formal council or even any personal guards, being too proud to even think of it, and too righteous to burdening his people with his own life. He'd protect what was his and what was there's. That was what a true king did.

Yet, Shikamaru knew that they'd need more than just Berlyiro. Hence why the Council had to be reformed. He had to choose from among the Dwarven nobles who thought themselves worthy of being Thauraan's protector and guide, for being his right and left hands and his eyes and ears.

And at least one of them was a traitor.

He'd thought about it from all possible angles, but that was one of his curses—there were too many angles. The traitor could be someone who had been closest to Magni, or it could've been someone nobody would've expected; somebody with keen ears and quick feet and a means of contacting Akatsuki without leaving Ironforge. There could be so many of them that both such categories could be possible and that would mean that if he outed one the others would revolt. What he didn't have was manpower, and nor did he have any means of protecting a king who had no means of protecting himself.

What he did have was the enmity of nearly every dwarf that stood before him now.

It was not hard to see why. They were jealous of his position at Thauraan's right side—a human, helping a dwarfish king decide who was to be his advisors. Probably some of them had the idea that he was already one of Thauraan's advisors.

Why the hell were things always so troublesome?

He cleared his throat, and then glanced once at Berlyiro. The old dwarf stood to the left of Thauraan's throne: a great heavy black thing that had been redesigned for Thauraan specifically. Iron and Dark Iron forced together, capped in bronze and silver with the hammers of Ironforge for arm rests. It was too big for him now, but he'd likely grow into it comfortably, even though it was hardly bigger than a normal chair.

Berlyiro looked at him through one eye, but didn't move otherwise, or change his expression. Shikamaru took that to mean it had already begun.

Fine, he thought. He turned and addressed the audience—a hundred or so grizzled Dwarven battle commanders, explorers, metalworkers and the privileged few who mined gold and silver and diamonds in the lands scattered across Dun Morogh.

"Right," he said. "I've been asked to choose between all of you."

They bristled visibly, though it was more like rocks shifting on a cliff, teetering dangerously near the edge. That image stuck, so he cleared his throat again and said more respectfully, closing his face and keeping his mind devoid of the nervous thoughts that flittered through them. He was good at that.

"Choose which ones of you are the best suited to this job, the best suited to protecting a king."

Somebody spat something in Dwarvish that Shikamaru didn't understand. Berlyiro shouted something, and they quieted.

"I'm aware," he said again, louder this time, "that you don't believe I should be here."

There was silence, but once again the rocks shifted.

"I shouldn't, in all honesty," he said. "I wouldn't be here either, if it weren't for the fact that your king has asked me to help choose—he for some reason thinks I'd be a good enough judge of character to weed out the traitor among you."

So perhaps he shouldn't have said it so bluntly, but Shikamaru had never really bothered to play the game of social conventions and ceremony, so he didn't mind kicking the rocks over the edge and watching the crowd tumble into heated chaos—roaring and spitting and snarling in two different languages (it was hard to tell them apart, with some) while Berlyiro shouted order, and eventually received it as well after a few minutes of harsh swearing in Dwarvish (Shikamaru wasn't sure it was swearing, but it sounded harsh enough to be it).

The crowd now seemed restless, bristling like a tightly wound cat preparing to pounce. Shikamaru took a few more moments of silence to gather himself and form what he was going to say, choosing for the more tactical, and less incendiary, route this time.

"Yes, traitor. I'm quite sure you'll all agree on that." He looked around. "There is no way those two monsters could have gotten inside Ironforge—which they clearly did, for guards on the outside and the inside of the tram station had been slain. They clearly didn't come from outside. The only way, then, two humans," he thought a moment, and reconsidered: "_humanoids, _could have entered by simply walking straight through Ironforge without being noticed or stopped or questioned. I'm sure everyone was doing their jobs that day—everyone was on alert, especially since their king had gone away to a foreign land." He stopped, and began to amble again, back and forth in front of his slowly quieting audience. Their memories quieted their anger, softened it, made them listen as he continued.

"Thus, I'm sure if they had been seen, they would've been stopped, questioned or at least recalled by somebody. Since nobody did recall seeing these brutes, nobody did stop them, or question them, then that means somebody let them in, took them in a very roundabout route through the city so that they were not seen, or if they were, it was only by those who didn't particularly care. They were taken to the tram station," here his eyes razored through the crowd, now silent, "where they proceeded to murder the honest, dutiful dwarves protecting their king's route home, and then their—_your_—king himself. Brutally." Shikamaru stopped. He stared, quiet, and they stared back, even quieter.

"A traitor, then," he said. "A traitor to a group of humans, as well. Or shinobi, if you could call us humans." He cocked his head to the side. "So you can understand why I was brought in, then. I've experience in outing traitors. I'm good at it."

That was a lie, of course, but Shikamaru was pretty good at lying. And they believed him, too. He was good at knowing when he was believed or not, too, and he could see them.

They believed.

"So I'll find him, or her for that matter, and we'll settle this once and for all." Her looked about. "Any questions?"

---------

"Naruto!" Sakura latched on to Naruto's flailing hand as the zeppelin careened sideways, the sound of splintering wood and the roar of flames and flashes of light and the smell of burnt wood and chemicals aflame, of coal and smoke. She pulled him up with ease, and he latched on with chakra to the wood, pulling himself to his feet.

But the zeppelin didn't keep them there for long. It rocked and sailed, twisting violently as a second explosion shattered the bow and released the balloon's tethers. The whole cabin tipped back, people and objects falling into the whistling blue.

Matthias exploded up from the stairwell, a look of maddened rage on his face. He was shouting something to the people behind him, shouting at them to move as he went aside and began to free the life-chutes strapped to the side of the cabin. People—his own, and the shinobi he carried—spilled out onto the deck, some roaring and screaming, others deathly calm.

"GO!" Matthias bellowed, shoving life-chutes into their hands. "ABANDON SHIP!"

The other zepplineers began to aid in the process, shoving life-chutes into the hands of their comrades and their passengers. Hinata was first, then Shino and Kiba and then Ino and Chouji and Neji and Tenten, and Golbarn last of all.

"GO!" Matthias bellowed. "AWAY! The ground is beneath us, go, GO!" He looked to Naruto and Sakura, and as the zeppelin began to fall, the air rushing down instead of past, the howling mixing with the cracking of the zeppelin's chassis coming apart around them, he somehow managed to reach them and thrust two chutes into their arms.

"Go," he growled. "I don't abandon somethin' I've worked for my entire life." It was as if he knew what Naruto had been about to say. The blonde looked at him wildly, swallowing, feeling a rush of fear as something he'd loved dearly since he'd first experienced it gave way to destruction. The feeling of flying free felt so different that Naruto could hardly process what the man was saying until the chute had been put on him and he'd been pushed near the ledge that waited to take him and all the rest.

The wind in his hair, on his skin, the howling that it made as it rushed past…

It was never so terrifying.

He glanced back at Matthias. The man was grinning, as always.

The fear fell away, focus returned. Naruto grinned back.

"FUCK THAT!" Naruto roared, biting his thumb.

'_Kuchiyose no jutsu'_

The zeppelin exploded in the ensuing flash of dead, grey smoke, from which emerged a screeching horror that caught all of the survivors on its hairy, rotting back.

'_WHAT IS THIS? WHAT, WHAT? YOU AGAIN, YOU? BOY? WHY HAVE YOU CALLED ME, WHY AGAIN?"_

Despite its screeching protest, Lacurad the giant bat dipped into the sinking pile of smoke and fire and snatched the falling crew, its captain, and its passengers in a single swoop before it flew up and the zeppelin that had once been a home and a life to Matthias and his crew was torn down until it was no more than formless smoke far below.

Twisting up, the giant bat leveled off, screeching angrily while its new occupants stumbled about in numb confusion, offset by its frightening speed and callous movements. Naruto stood at its head, firmly affixed with chakra, shouting at the beast to slow down so that nobody would fall off.

"_YOU CALL ME, THEN ORDER ME? ORDER ME? YOU ARE NOT MY MISTRESS, NOTHING OF THE SORT, WHY DO YOU PRESUME, PRESUME!_"

"Oi!" Naruto roared, "just shut up! If Old lady Sylvanas were here, she'd tell you to shut up and do what you're told, you big fat rat!"

"_RAT? RAT? HOW DARE YOU, HUMAN! HOW DARE YOU?"_

"Just shut up!" Twisting, Naruto observed the others. "Is everyone al—"

He reeled, Matthias' fist colliding so hard with his face that even the chakra didn't keep him from hitting the rippling smelly floor beneath them. He looked up, eyes wide, half-angry, half-stunned.

"You bloody little brat," Matthias growled. "You stupid little wanker. Who told you to save us?" His eyes smoldered like the ruins of his zeppelin, his speech spewing spittle down his beard. "What gives you that bloody right?"

"What the hell are you—"

"That was our life," the zeppelineer said. "Our life just went down. What's the point of bein' here when our life is gone?"

"It's a fucking zeppelin!" Naruto snarled, getting to his feet, throwing his face close to Matthias'. "Get a new one."

"You bloody, fucking little brat!" Matthias roared. "I don't want a new one! It don' work like that, not at all! That was me greatest treasure, irreplaceable, you can't get anything like that! Not again!" he shoved Naruto back, but the boy barely moved this time. It made him angrier.

"Stop it," Sakura cried. "It's not important right now, we need to figure out—" She stopped, something catching her eye. In the endless blue, among the clouds, it was almost impossible to see it, and that was probably why it had taken them by such surprise. She turned, looking closely, she saw it—floating among the clouds was a great, white bird, not like anything she'd ever—

Hang on. Her eyes adjusted, and she squinted against the roaring wind. That was—!

She turned, "Naruto! It's Akats—"

The third explosion of the day tore a sizeable chunk out of Lacurad's back, throwing some of Matthias' crewmen off into the sky with piles of stinking green-tinged blood and rotten coal hair. The black bat screeched and twisted that more people threatened to spill into the sky—only the shinobi stopped them, gripping its flesh with chakra and holding on to the fully grown men and women with all their strength. Naruto shouted at the bat to regain control, take them down, but it was maddened by pain.

"Sakura-chan!"

The girl went immediately to the damaged area, pressing her hands to the great red crater, she released as much healing chakra as she could manage into it, watching the blood stop, the flesh begin to restitch itself, but it wasn't happening fast enough and she didn't have even a quarter of the amount of anesthetic necessary to numb a wound on a creature of that size.

"DOWN!" Naruto bellowed at the bat.

The beast went down—to the underground lair from which it had been so rudely snatched from, leaving its riders free-floating amidst a cloud of putrid, sulfurous smoke.

The air rushed by Naruto, plunging him into whirling cold, the wind twisting his flight down, cutting at his face and eyes, making the sky and the world seem one. He didn't know how to orient himself, he just tumbled furiously for what seemed like only a few short seconds before he struck something soft and malleable. The world righted itself, he landed on his back, the sky above him all vast and blue and terrifying. The impact drove the air from his lungs, but he fought to get up, to move, a sense of desperate urgency rising in him, knowing that his friends were somewhere, maybe still falling, maybe already dead. He twisted blindly, and thought he saw Ino behind him, until he realized Ino never wore black and certainly had never kicked him in the face, which this person did. Naruto's nose shattered, pain roaring in his ears, splashing red into his face and throughout his mind—he struck back, but received only another strike, which sent him reeling into tunneling blackness, the last sight being the beautiful, horrifying vastness.

------

Naruto awoke, and the blue was still there above him. It seemed farther than before, and redder, though he realized that the redness was not in the sky but the blood that was in his eyes. Then the sky disappeared, and a man replaced it, grinning like the dead.

"So you're awake, hmm? How are you, Kyuubi-brat, hmm?"

Naruto stared blankly at the man for a moment, only seeing the smile—a twisted thing that was more a collection of flesh and teeth than a true smile—and then saw the rest of him, and recognized him.

"You're the bastard who killed Gaara," he muttered.

"And you're the bastard who killed me, hmm?" The eye was glassier than before, like a polished precious stone set inside a gleaming pearl. Perhaps that was why it didn't smile. It didn't seem real.

"Killed…?"

"Remember, hmm?" The man seemed delighted, but it seemed wrong, like it was almost musical and the man's voice was a collection of strings like a piano, the emotion conveyed simply through the vibration of a few man-made strings.

"Sort of," Naruto confessed, though he did remember, because he'd never forget the face of the man who had killed Gaara and nearly killed Mekkatorque. But the way the man's smile faltered made his lie a little bit worth it. "Whaddya want?"

"That's obvious, Kyuubi-brat, isn't it? I didn't think they'd send you, but apparently Sasori was quite right in thinking that you'd be the one they sent. That's great, though, but I'd hoped for a bit more of a show from you, hmm. It'd make things a lot easier for all of us, though I think that if it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't do it myself, I'd blow off your head right now and send you and that disgusting monster in your stomach off to the next world…hmm." The face came closer, and Naruto twisted to avoid seeing it any better than he did. The man's voice was sickening to hear, almost human but not, and his features as creepy as if somebody had made a doll of him.

"Can't bear to look at me, hmm? Not many can, anymore. I guess Sasori-_danna_," the honorific sounded more like a swear—"isn't as good of a sculptor as he thought he might be. Can't even get my voice right, you know?" It sounded hilarious to him, and abruptly the man began to laugh. "I'm not even real, hmm!"

Naruto didn't argue. His eyes searched, and he found that they were moving; the steady beating of the clay golem's wings and the slowly drifting clouds above and below, and the whispering wind with its cool touch made that clear. He couldn't see the ground, though—all he could see was blue, and the man's not-quite right face. He closed his eyes.

"Scared?"

Naruto's eyes flew open, and he glared intensely at the man. It seemed to make him even happier. "I'm not scared, asshole."

"No…hmm? What about your friends, hmm? Are you scared for them?"

Naruto remembered. His heart nearly stopped. "Where are they?"

"Dead, hmm. Nobody picked them up. I even went down and checked. They're all splattered against the rocks, it was a good sight. Like they'd been detonated, like one of my works of art, hmm! But dead, well and truly dead, hmm."

Naruto met his eyes again, and once again the man seemed delighted, the vibrating strings pitching a nice falsetto as he giggled. "You're lying," Naruto said.

"Do I sound…" the man's voice grew colder than Naruto would've thought such a smiling face could project, "…like I have anything to lie about? What's the point of lying…hmm? I never lie about art, never, hmm! The only thing I hated about that sight was its permanency."

"You're lying," Naruto said again.

"Believe what you want, hmm. They're gone." The man's voice lingered on the final word, as if savoring a taste.

"You might not know it," Naruto's breath was soft, unlabored. "But you're lying." He knew it. Anger broiled in him at the man's confidence, but it was only because of that. They wouldn't die, not like that, it was impossible. It had to be. There was no way they could die like that, not now, not so…unceremoniously.

The man's eyebrow rose. "Not even shinobi can survive falls that high, hmm. Nobody in your group could fly, not like me, hmm." The man stood, and now Naruto saw the rest of his body, veiled in the black cloak. He stood like a giant against the sky.

"You're lying," Naruto said, one final time. He struggled to stand. "Bastard."

The man stomped on Naruto's face, and all went black again.

-----

When Naruto next woke, he was not in the air anymore. The blue was gone, the wind halted, the coolness now stinking, muggy, oppressive. The bright light was now smoky darkness, and not even its great reach extended to wherever Naruto had ended up. Wherever it was, it stunk mightily, though that might've just been the blood that filled Naruto's crushed nostrils and mouth and covered his eyes and made his face sticky, warm and quite unpleasant. Despite that, he managed to sit up, though he fell back almost immediately, punched by a swift bought of nausea and dizziness.

He wasn't sure what caused it: the kick to the face or the words that despite Naruto's convictions, had needled their way into his thoughts and were making every effort to poison his confidence, turning it to weakness and defeat.

"_They're dead."_

He shook his head. Get up, he decided, and then think that through.

But what was the point of getting up if there was nobody left?

Not that, he thought, and got up, stumbling a bit, but managing to stand this time despite the swiftly rising bile in his throat. He forced it down, coughed a few times, and then looked about. It was a dirty cell, lined with straw and refuse that might've been months old, a ratty bed and a chamberpot that might've once been something's skull. The blackness swallowed everything else—beyond the bars, he saw nothing. There was no window.

He'd seen this room before, he was sure. Not that specific cell, but this was probably the dungeon that Thrall had grudgingly built beneath his hold, meant to hold only the worst criminals for very short periods of time. Naruto had seen it once in his time in Orgrimmar, and even then it had been hardly more than a few minutes.

He wiped the blood from his nose, sniffling a few times and then retching as he got a mouthful of blood and mucus. He spent the next few moments adjusting his face, relaxing as the Kyuubi's unwitting chakra entered and repaired the damage. The pain lessened, the nausea passed, and Naruto began to think.

They'd kept him alive. It was obvious why, though—they needed the Kyuubi. He didn't know how they planned to get it, or when they did, but that gave him some time to think of a way to get out of this place. He squinted through the darkness, wishing he had his goggles. He checked himself just to make sure—but his weapons and his other tools had been removed. They were probably upstairs somewhere.

He squatted for a few moments, frowning into the darkness, wondering what lay beyond it. He smelt nothing but the stale air and the rotten straw and dung; if there was anyone else down here, they either had no smell of their own or they had been down here so long that theirs was the same as the dungeon's. He thought of calling out, but wasn't sure if he should. It might tell Akatsuki that he was awake. He didn't want them down here again, especially after one of them had kicked him not once, but twice. In the face, as well. Bastard.

Though, he had to feel a little sorry for the clay-bombing man—in a strange way, at least. Because of Naruto, that man was no longer a man at all. He'd been turned into something not-human by his own partner, if his own partner was, indeed, still the crazy puppet-master that Sakura had claimed he was. What kind of monsters were these guys? Where they actually human? Could something that possessed that kind of power—and the desire to use such a power—really be considered human?

He didn't think so, but he supposed human was relative, anyways. Besides, he didn't care much to think of that right now. It didn't matter if they were human or not. They'd still fall, once he got the chance to get out and kick their asses again. He grit his teeth, and then, wondering if it could be that easy, approached the bars and struck out with all of his strength.

The bars did not budge. They were made of bone, and solid as iron, and only hurt his hand. Nodding, he dried something else. Reaching out, he held a hand open and concentrated. He felt chakra began to gather beneath the surface of his palm, swirling already, but when he attempted to push it out, attempted to form it into the swirling sphere of death he'd used for ages, nothing happened.

Grunting, Naruto tried harder. It was like trying to force a tree trunk through a pinhole, though. It began to burn, and his skin began to bleed, the whirling chakra within cutting the inside of his hand in an attempt to get out and obey.

Finally, he stopped and sat back, staring at it angrily, and wincing. He could mould chakra, but it wouldn't leave his body. He searched himself, quickly to see if there was anything on his person which would prevent him from doing that, but there was nothing. So he sat back, and waited a while longer, frowning at the bars of the cell, thinking. He looked around, wondering if there was something about the cell itself. Probably. If the most dangerous criminals were held here, then Thrall would want insurance—something to keep them from using whatever power they possessed to get free.

He grunted, and crossed his arms. What now?

He called out: "ANYBODY THERE?"

He waited a few minutes, but heard only the general creaking of something old. The dungeons had survived Rend Blackhand's destructive rampage, and were as old as Orgrimmar. But the walls must've been thick. He couldn't hear anything.

He tried looking for Tsuwabuki's bond. But there was nothing—he was cut off from even that. But that didn't matter, as she was a world away in Stormwind protecting Kira. He cursed, and then sat back and thought some more, wondering how to approach this. He got up again, forced some chakra into his hand, and then ran at the bars.

He sat back down again a few minutes later with a bruised hand and the sound of his attempt to smash the bars reverberating throughout the stony cage. Whatever bone it was made of, it wasn't something he could break, apparently.

He sat and watched the darkness, then, not knowing how long he was there. The other aches in his body—caused by the crash and the fall and the Akatsuki member's beatings, gradually faded until the only thing that bothered him was the smell, the sounds, and the darkness. Even that eventually faded, and he simply watched and waited.

Hours later, he heard movement. He lifted his head, letting his ears seek out the fine nuances of the person's movement. They were light steps, quickly taken, and it didn't take long for a figure to melt out of the darkness, short and slim.

"Ah, Deidara told me of you, how pleasant that you're here. This makes things quite easy, although I have to say, you did come at a bad time."

The voice was unfamiliar to Naruto, but he had to be Akatsuki, as there were no other humans in Orgrimmar. "You're that Sasori guy, aren't you? The one that Sakura-chan told me about."

"Sakura-chan? Ah, you must mean the pink-haired girl who fought alongside my grandmother." Naruto could only see a vague outline of the man in the darkness, seeing only his head tilt thoughtfully. His words reflected contented surprise, a man perpetually aiming to please his prey just before he killed them.

"Why is it a bad time?" Naruto stayed where he was. Even though he couldn't see the man, he felt the same revulsion he did from Deidara. This man wasn't right. He didn't even need to see a smile for that to be clear.

"Because I have other things to do. I can't be bothered doing the ritual that you're involved in," Sasori sighed, as if contemplating the great injustices of the world. "But I suppose it would be fine to keep you here for a time, especially when I have no need to worry about your companions arriving. I might even be able to have some fun with you. Perhaps, oh, this could be possible, yes, I think…" Naruto narrowed his eyes. The man's head tilted again, and he emitted a soft chuckle.

"Oh yes, that could be a way to test if he's ready or not. I always love a good show, too." Sasori nodded. "Yes, that should be fine. I'll come back for you when the time is ready." He turned, making his way back into darkness.

"Hey!" Naruto cried. "Come back! Bastard! What are you going to do?"

"That would spoil the show," the man's lingering voice wafted back, cheerfully enigmatic, infuriatingly calm.

"You'll see."

-------

The air was hot, dry; scorched red by the golden sun and possessing only a slight breeze from the sea, three miles south. Great mesas erupted all around, towering into the sky, making it impossible to see anything save for great walls of rock, dotted with dusty branches of dying trees, scant few nests where some birds had once attempted to make families, but were now empty and alone.

It was here that Sakura awoke, crowed amongst the other members of her group, in a cave that offered them some cool respite from the sun and the dry, afternoon air.

Grunting, she pulled herself out of the wedge of rock she had slept against, and lightly moved out into the canyon, stretching as she did. The ground was dusty, but hard and easy to move on quickly, which had served them well when the harpies had attacked the previous day. Naruto had talked about those creatures once, and Sakura hadn't believed much of them until they had pursued them for nearly ten miles from their crash site, until they'd managed to lose the flock within the winding canyons they were not lost among.

Making sure no one was looking, she jumped down and hid behind a canyon to go to the bathroom, and when she'd finished she set off in search of something to eat. They had reserve food, including the technique Naruto had taught her, but neither would last and she didn't want to waste chakra unnecessarily. Besides, it didn't work so well anyways, and never left her feeling full or energized. The canyon had proved to be full of food, you just had to know where to look.

She kept her eyes on the skies, however. The harpies might be anywhere. She was sure they'd have been able to take them on, given enough time, but not only did they not have that but the crash had made them weak, and had injured them, and even she hadn't yet fully recovered from using so much chakra in summoning Katsuyu to cushion their fall.

The first day had been torture, just running from the swarm that had appeared so suddenly after their ploy had worked—obviously, harpies ate whatever they could get. After Sakura, Hinata and Ino had exhausted their supplies of blood pills in creating the effect that they had been smashed to bits on the rocks, they'd been set upon by the flock of bird women intending to make a meal of their corpses. When they'd found out their prey had not yet died, they seemed even more excited about the prospect of a meal.

After they'd lost the harpies, they'd realized they'd lost themselves as well. Not even Matthias knew anything about the snaking canyons that they had wandered through for two days already, attempting to find some way of getting out.

Without Matthias, as well.

The captain planned to return to the wreckage of his zeppelin. "Ain't our fight," he told them, when they'd been eager to get to Orgrimmar. "Don't even know where it is, in relation to where we are."

"The harpies might've gone back there!" Sakura had shouted.

"So be it," the man looked nothing like he once had. He was pale, thin, and covered in dirt and blood he looked like nothing more than the smuggler he claimed to be. Worst of all, his eyes had died with his ship and most of his crew. "I'd rather get picked off by carrion birds than go back to what I was like before me zeppelin. I was nothing before then, I'm nothing now. That ship was my soul, my one true thing, and now it's gone, you know? Can't repair it, getting a new one would be like trying to _buy_ a new life. You don't buy life, you forge it, and you live it. I forged my life in that zeppelin and I swore that they day it fell was the day I did too."

"Yes, but—" Sakura flailed for words, but it was one time when they simply wouldn't come.

"It's his decision," Neji's voice was as hard as his eyes. "We'd best be going, too, Sakura." Because Asuma and Kurenai had not gone with them, he'd assumed the position of team leader, according to rank. While Sakura didn't doubt he'd be a great team leader, she could've smacked him at that moment. There was some things that geniuses just couldn't understand!

"But Naruto—" Sakura began again, but this time, Matthias cut her off.

"Would tell me ta start a new life, to do live and try to forge a new one. Don't work like that, and I think he'd say different if I told him I made a promise to myself and to my ship, and he knows how sacred promises are, lass." His dead eyes smiled a little then, and he said in a softer voice. "I'll miss the lad, though. Great banter he was. Tell him I'm glad I met him. I've met only a few people like him in my life and I've never forgotten a one of them. He made my life interesting." He chuckled, but it was like the chuckle of a dying man. "Well, I'll be seeing you."

He went off, calling to his remaining crew. "Alrigh' lads, time to head back, give our girl a proper burial! Then you can fuck off, for all I care!"

That was the last time they saw him, for he and his crew left that night.

We're shinobi, she thought. It should be easy. No emotions, nothing. So why did she feel so bitter, angry so annoyed? And why wasn't she able to keep all that to herself, like everyone else was?

And when would they get out of this shithole, and find Naruto? He suddenly knew how he felt all those times he'd been so eager to help, to get to wherever they were going to beat up the bad guys as fast as he could to save his friends. She felt like doing that, right now, and even though she was able to suppress it, it lingered like a bleeding sore in her heart.

She looked up and around her. The walls were too hard to latch on with chakra—rocks came loose with each step, and you couldn't get two feet without a rock giving way. Some places were so huge and so high it was impossible to even contemplate scaling the walls.

Neji and Hinata had their Byakugan, however. That helped, but still they had to walk, and in the day it was dangerous—the heat was too much, the harpies too frequent. At night, it was cold, frosty nearly but it was better to move then, and even then, the paths were so winding that even with the ability to see through walls it'd take them days by foot to get out of the canyons.

Then there were the buzzards, which flocked to the little outcroppings—huge birds that made the vultures they'd seen in their own world look like pidgeons in size. They were hideous beasts, red-headed, pimply and perpetually starving-thin. They watched their progress with eagerness, knowing that it wouldn't be long before something got them.

Of course, they made great meals. Neji had been the one to suggest eating them, surprisingly. They were delicious.

"Are you g-going somewhere, Sakura-san?" Sakura turned towards Hinata's soft voice, now only vaguely stuttering, and smiled at the shy girl.

"Yes," she said. "Going to get some food, I suppose, while everyone else is asleep."

"Aren't you h-hot?" Hinata clearly was. She'd shed, much to her embarrassment, her heavy overcoat. Sakura would've normally been jealous of the way Hinata's shirt clung so closely to her large chest, but it was too hot to get worked up about it, and she was getting used to the fact that her breasts would never be as Tsunadean as she'd hoped they would be.

"Of course," Sakura said, smiling. "You?"

"Very much," the girl was red as ever, but it was the distinctly unhealthy glow of somebody who'd been in the sun too long, rather than embarrassment. "Would you mind if…?"

"I could use the company," Sakura said, smiling. "And somebody with range as well. I don't have many kunai to spare, to tell you the truth."

"O-of course." They walked along, sticking close to the walls so that any harpies flying overhead wouldn't be able to see them as clearly. "I-I, actually…"

Sakura glanced over at her, blinking. "What's up?"

"It's just, well, I have a q-question, I've been meaning to ask for a-awhile, but y-you know, I just…" Hinata swallowed. "I'm sorry, I should be b-better at this by now."

"It's fine," Sakura said, smiling. "No rush."

"I f-feel stupid sometimes, stuttering like t-this," Hinata said, quietly, avoiding Sakura's eyes. "I c-can talk okay with Kurenai-sensei, and K-Kiba-kun and S-Shino-kun, but…" She shrugged. "It's h-hard with others…"

"Even Neji?"

"I'm o-okay with him," Hinata said, smiling. "B-better than before, at a-any rate."

"But not so good with me, eh?"

Hinata blushed a little. "I-I'm sorry—"

"Don't be," Sakura said, smiling a little. "You shouldn't have to be so formal around me, either. We've been through a lot, you know? We're friends, I suspect." She glanced at Hinata. "Don't you think so?"

"Y-yes, of course!" Hinata wrung her hands, glancing skywards for a moment. The smell of dust and salt hit them hard with a sudden rush of wind whistling through the canyon. The two of them stopped for a moment, and glanced up towards the walls of the canyon. They saw nests, but no birds. They moved on.

"So what question did you have?"

"Uhm, well," Hinata fought for words for a moment. She frowned, wrung her hands a little more, and then nodded to herself and said, "It's about N-N-Naruto-kun."

Sakura's heart beat a little faster. "Ah, really?"

"Y-yes," she said. "Y-you like him, don't you?"

Sakura swallowed, and didn't say anything, hoping to spot a buzzard or two to avoid the question. No such luck. She sighed, and looked back at Hinata. "Well, perhaps a little, but—"

"Oh."

Sakura blinked, looking again at Hinata. It was the first definite thing he'd heard the girl utter; without trace of indecision, or that peculiar softness. There was something in it.

"I j-just," Hinata's battle with words rage silently again. "I m-mean, it should b-be obvious, s-shouldn't?"

"You mean," Sakura said slowly, "about your feelings for him?"

"Yes."

Sakura nodded a little. "Yes, I suppose it was." She gave the other girl a nervous smile. "Was that your question?"

Hinata shook her head. "N-no, not really." She swallowed again. "Do y-you think…do you think I-I should g-give up on him?"

Sakura swallowed. Why was she asking Sakura this? Why not ask somebody else, like Kurenai or Ino or Tenten or even Shino or Kiba or—

"What, um, do you think you should do?"

Hinata watched her, gulping. "I d-don't know."

"Right, that's why you're asking," Sakura said in a low voice to herself, biting her lip. She looked at Hinata again. "Do you still, er, like him?"

"I d-don't know."

Sakura sucked in her breath. "You don't know?"

"I-I've…" Hinata paid close attention to the walls again, hoping desperately to see some buzzards, wondering if there was going to be anything to derail this topic that for some reason she'd saw fit to bring up when Naruto had been spirited away to another place, and might not even be alive at the moment, and for some reason it seemed so much more damn important than finding a way out of this place and finding Naruto and freeing him from whatever peril he might be in.

They'd made an agreement on the first night, after they'd shaken off the harpies. They wouldn't rush. Naruto might be in danger, but he might not—there were a lot of unknowns about the situation, but one unknown gave them comfort—and that was Naruto himself. The boy was utterly unpredictable, even by his friends, and he might already have escaped by now and freed the entire city of Orgrimmar.

Probably not, though.

Rushing would get them killed. It would cause them unnecessary stress, expend energy that they needed to conserve.

And even though every single one of them wanted to rush, they wouldn't.

They couldn't.

"I…" Hinata said again, after a moment. "I've admired h-him, for s-so long. He inspired m-me to d-do my best in e-everything, he m-made it worth it t-to be a shinobi, for the l-longest time. When he d-disappeared here, it made me s-so sad, so h-helpless—I wanted to b-be able to do anything, to be a-able to help him c-come back. When he d-did, I was s-so happy, but then there w-was Kira-sama, and she was s-so amazing and s-so beautiful and it was clear that she liked him, and t-then I saw you talking to him a few times, and the l-look you had on your face and t-then you went on a date with him and—" Her breath slowed. "And…"

"A-ah," Sakura said, before she could finish. Her heart was thumping again. What look on her face? She'd had a look on her face? What was it?

"F-Forgive me…" Hinata gulped. "I didn't mean to b-bring it up like this. It's t-too weird a situation." She fell silent.

"No," Sakura said, "it was a perfectly natural time to bring it up, and it's better to get it out of your system if it's bothering you. Better than having something distract you in battle, you know?"

"Y-yeah," Hinata's pearl eyes lowered, and she blushed in embarrassment. "What a shinobi I am…"

"That's not what I meant—"

A distant call shattered their conversation. Hinata swallowed, and with a whisper Sakura asked her to activate her Byakugan. It took her a moment to calm herself, and then release the chakra necessary, and when her eyes lit up and her face dissolved into horror, Sakura realized that the harpies had returned.

"The o-others!"

They bolted. It took them mere minutes to return to their hiding place, and when they had the others were already up, alert, ready. Neji cursed them for being off so long, and they geared up to move, the hot desert sun roaring down upon them as they went.

------

Naruto had no idea how long he waited, and although water was brought to him frequently (by who he had no idea) he was not fed and by the time they came to get him he was weak and furious, on his hands and knees ready to make a bolt for it as soon as they made a misstep.

Orcs came for him.

They weren't under their own control, he realized, though. They had that dimness of the eyes and starkness of the faces that Yura had possessed, way back when he'd fought the man, in pursuit of Gaara. It made their faces seem terrifying—there's were faces that seemed built for anger, for wrinkles and snarls, not smooth and emotionless, filled with ice and not fire.

They were dressed in the armor of Thrall's personal elite, the Kok'ron, and they possessed their strength as well. He tried to knock one out with his bare hands when they came in, only to get an aching fist and a backhand to the face. They then grabbed him and literally carried him out of the cell, in chains.

Out of the darkness bloomed stairs, and at the top of the stairs a door. Then he began to recognize things—the skin-lined hallways of doors that led to Thrall's throne room, the shaman's inner sanctum built into the entrance hall, and then out into the streets of the Valley of Wisdom, which were bare of life and activity so much so that it disturbed Naruto. An Orgrimmar without life was not Orgrimmar. It looked like a skeleton bleached in the desert sun.

Through the streets he was marched. They saw no one, but Naruto could smell people—in the windows of houses, hiding in alleyways, scurrying across the paths of the marching Kok'ron, who paid no mind to the gutterfolk. These were the refuse of any city—rising up from the darker corners when the rest of the inhabitants had long gone.

But where…?

Finally, they reached it. The great fortress, Naruto knew it well.

So I'm here again, he thought. When was it…? Yeah, he suddenly realized. This was the first place I ever ended up in this city.

The gate was open, unguarded, but nobody would really have any reason to break into this building. It was only down a hall, and out into the open before he recognized anything else. The wide, circular arena stood before him, older and unused. The stands were empty, save for the far end, where the Warchief's balcony lay.

The Kok'ron wasted no time. They took him to the edge and hefted him, unceremoniously, into the arena. He landed on his feet, blinking, still trying to get used to the light and the piercing rays of the sun, which came through the top of the arena in a focused ray as if to show its occupants the truth of its brutality. He thought about escaping but then realized it wouldn't do much good.

He watched the red-haired Akatsuki member, who sat beneath a little tarp to shield off the sun. Naruto didn't have to see the full outline of his face to realize he was still smiling that same smile that had been hinted at in the darkness. He walked forwards, into the center of the ring, keeping his eyes trained tightly on the man.

"See how much fun this is going to be?" Sasori's enthusiasm turned to ashes as he spoke. Naruto didn't think a man like him could be interested in anything.

"So who am I going to fight? You?" Naruto asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Ah, most likely not," Sasori gave a little shake of his head. "No, I have someone much better in mind, more appropriate for this situation."

Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Oh yeah?"

The man nodded, and smiled. He pointed across the arena, behind Naruto, to where the gates that led fighters into the arena normally. Naruto turned and saw an orc, clad all in armor, standing there, watching him.

Naruto swallowed, a sudden chill running down his spine.

"You've gotta be kidding…"

"I most assuredly am not," Sasori said. "Let's begin this show of puppets, shall we?"

Thrall raised his Doomhammer, and without further ado, charged.

* * *

Late, late, late, late, late.

Yes, I know.

No excuse, other than writer's block (of a sorts) and no time. Been in Finland for a while as well, which didn't help things.

But at least it's out, yeah?

Tell me anything that's wrong with the chapter, and I'll take note of it and fix it up next time. Stylistically, at least. I'm aiming for criticism, since it's the best way for my writing to improve. You guys are good at doing that, these days.

It makes me remember the old days, sometimes.

Hope you guys have been well. Another chapter will be out, eventually. Hope you can wait! Hope this one was worth it, as well.

All the best,

General Grievous


	40. Author's Note

Readers,

I am not discontinuing the fic. Please note that. At the moment least, I have some idea of returning to it. It brings back so many memories that to abandon it would be worse than anything I could do.

But, as you've noticed, I have not updated. Not in a while. A very long while and most of you are believing that I am gone away in some form or another to worlds yet unknown. In fact my life has gone on as normal, with the simple exception that in the past month my father has passed away due to cancer.

I am not fit currently to continue or focus on a work of this scale. However fun it might be normally I don't feel right now. So I will not for the moment or in the foreseeable future continue this story.

I apologize.

I liked doing this. I loved it. It was so much fun and I loved seeing what would happen as much as you all do. But I don't feel that fun as much anymore and my life has taken so many different paths since I last updated that I can't really explain it all in this.

I'll come back.

Maybe one day.

Thank you all for reading, and thank you so much for all that you've done over the years. You made writing this a huge part of my life and I would not trade it for the world. There is something about this fic, however horribly I feel that it is written and however strangely the plot seems to have taken, but I have ideas that still burn and a world so big that it's tantalizing not to return. I will. I don't know when, and it won't be in the same quickness as before, but I will return.

Again, thanks for reading. You guys have helped me through some of the formative years of my life by just reading the slop that I've written. Thanks to all of you. I hope that I was able to inspire at least a few of you to start your own stories and to see where they go.

Ta ta for now, my friends, but I'll return.

Don't worry about that.

General Grievous


End file.
